The best Sijena possible

The MNAC, Barcelona, and Catalonia will soon be removed from the spotlight of the debate over the artistic treasures of Santa María de Sijena. Unless there is an unexpected twist, the murals currently housed at the Barcelona museum will be moved to the monastery in the near future.

This will bring to a close a dispute that has lasted more than a quarter of a century. It will then be up to the MNAC to decide whether to turn the page or turn the crisis into an opportunity to lead the debate on the restitution of museum pieces, as we suggested last week. But what is clear is that it will no longer depend on Catalonia to determine whether or not the Aragonese monastery achieves the recognition it deserves.

A confusion that led to controversy has brought a piece from Sijena to the forefront this week, one that is neither in the monastery nor, for now, expected to be. This happened when an Aragonese expert suggested that the altarpiece of The Nativity , now in the Prado, was stolen from Santa María in 1936 by the Catalan civil servant Josep Gudiol, the same person who rescued the frescoes. Apparently, the accuser confused a 1936 photo with one from 1923, which showed the valuable panel from the main altarpiece.

It is difficult to understand why the return of the Prado altarpiece to Aragon is not being considered.

The piece would have left Sijena shortly before the monastery was declared a national monument in 1923, so from a judicial perspective, there would be no case (it's a different matter whether we accept the under-the-table sales that the local clergy have made throughout history to all kinds of shrewd buyers, from historians to accredited gamblers).

But perhaps the most significant development in recent days is the Aragonese government's response to the question of whether, in light of the controversy, it would request The Nativity from the Prado to return it to Sijena, since its literal meaning ("we will reclaim it if it is confirmed that it left the monastery illegally") seems to indicate that the regional government is not yet planning to demand the piece.

Let's remember that the panel arrived legally at the great Spanish art gallery after the Ministry of Culture acquired it at auction in 2003. The museum keeps it on display as part of the main altarpiece of the Royal Pantheon at the Monastery of Santa María de Sijena. It is not considered a minor piece.

The Government of Aragon, which has fought tirelessly to recover the works deposited in Catalonia, is within its rights, for museum reasons or political calculations, to renounce one of the crown jewels of Sijena, or another similar panel on display in Toledo. But it's hard to understand why it would do so after having invested six million euros in restoring the monastery, presumably to restore it to its original splendor.

The Prado's ownership of the altarpiece does not diminish the legitimacy of a potential claim to have The Nativity placed in Sijena as the storage site. Aragon has every ethical and cultural right to claim it. It would be very difficult to argue a negative response. The art gallery itself has recently adopted a bold decentralizing line with its program. The extended Prado, which has raised eyebrows among the most stale sectors of Madrid nationalism.

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For the museum, an undisputed wonder of humanity, the piece's absence would be of little relevance, while the monastery could display it as the icing on the cake, while waiting to recover other missing objects.

The Aragonese president himself, Jorge Azcón, recently recalled Article 22 of his Statute, which obliges public authorities to "develop the necessary actions to ensure the return to Aragon of all assets comprising its cultural, historical, and artistic heritage that are located outside its territory."

In conclusion: recovering the best possible Sijena is a goal that should be shared even by those Catalans who have sincerely admired the paintings over the years, who, by the way, are not all those who have been up in arms about the imminent departure.

The Portuguese example

“There is more to the country beyond Lisbon, and at a time of national projection and tourism, it's only natural that we strengthen Porto's creative capacity and artistic scene.” This is how the then-Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, justified in 2018 the allocation of a collection of Joan Miró paintings from a bank bailout to the Serralves Foundation in Porto. In Portugal, Spain, and any civilized country, the role of governments is also to redistribute cultural wealth.

The lightness of heritage

The fire at the Mosque of Córdoba immediately uncovered miserable outbreaks of Islamophobia shielded by the anonymity of the most abject social media. And then, alarm over the fragility of a heritage so exposed to a simple short circuit and the exceptional temperatures of our time. I wish the same effort being made to harness the military or educational uses of technology would be dedicated to using those same advances to protect such exceptional monuments.

The bull as a legacy

One of the reasons why a madness like the Vox and Spanish Bullfighting Academy's project to erect a 300-meter sculpture of a bull has had an international impact is that, in the Trump II era, anything seems possible. Nothing can be ruled out. But, if it doesn't come to fruition, it's worth remembering that the figure of the bull is splendidly represented in a less-than-explored spot in Ávila: the Guisando bulls, sculpted in granite between the 4th and 1st centuries BC.