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Detail of the high choir chair

Master MateoCirca 1200

The Catedral de Santiago Foundation

The Catedral de Santiago Foundation
Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Detail of the crestry of the choir of Maestro Mateo. We appreciate the remnants of polychrome in the granite. One of the canopies with an architectural shape shelters under its trilobed arch (where reliefs of medieval bestiary animals such as sirens, centaurs, dragons or griffins develop along the entire crest of the choir) a pair of dragons with necks intertwined with vegetables.

Among the canopies stand out the elongated figures of choir children preparing to sing praises to the Lord as a struggle to free themselves from the seduction of sin. They are teenagers, beardless and with curly hair or long braids, which remind us of models of the Portico of Glory and the figures on the exterior facades of the choir itself. All these images appear standing, firm, focused on their mission, with the same conceptual unity. However, each of them denotes a freedom of execution, they differ from gestures, expressions, clothes. . . so it is possible to verify the collaboration of several sculptors from Master Mateo's school. It seems that the two children in the image were made by different sculptors, one of them being much more expressive, with an enigmatic, naturalistic and gothic smile, and the other, hieratic, serious and Romanesque. The two figures make a gesture with their left hand, crossed over their chest, and holding a poster with the right one, where perhaps the corresponding chant would appear.

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  • Title: Detail of the high choir chair
  • Creator: Taller Maestro Mateo
  • Date: Circa 1200
  • Location: Santiago de Compostela, Spain
  • Type: Architectural element
  • Medium: Granite
The Catedral de Santiago Foundation

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