Altar side panels

There is a panel dedicated to the Archangel Saint Michael, from the church of Sant Miquel in Soriguerola, near Urtx, in the La Cerdanya plain (conserved in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya), that has lent its name to one of the most original masters of Catalan painting in the late 13th century, active in the period of the transition from Romanesque to Gothic. These two side panels from a church in the Ribes Valley are the work of this painter, characterised by the use of backgrounds of very bright colours, generally reds, yellows and greens, on which he draws the figures heavily outlined in black. The scene of the Archangel Michael weighing the souls, called the ‘psychostasis', is very similar to the one that appears on the panel from Soriguerola and is without doubt one of the most popular in Catalan mediaeval art. The archangel is holding the scales with the naked figure of a soul tipping to the side of salvation, while a devil with a hook is trying to make the scales tip over to his side. The other panel, also related to the iconography of salvation, shows the standing figure of Saint Peter, with the keys to Heaven, talking to the apostle Saint Paul. One of the salient features of this master is the capacity for narrative synthesis of the scenes drawn, far-removed from naïf or merely popular art. Among the works influenced by the Master of Soriguerola, in the Museu Episcopal de Vic there are two side panels from an altar conserved with the figures of Saints Peter and Paul, from Mogrony, currently exhibited next to these panels from the Ribes Valley.