Tudela - West Side - W11PP52

N E W S

  Tudela
West Side
W11PP52

N E W S
W11PP52S S

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W11PP52W W

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W11PP52N N

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W11PP52E E

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Birds and Hares Entangled in Tendrils

A complex interlace of plant motifs, with animals caught in its tendrils, covers the kalathos of the capital. In spite of the progressive erosion of the stone, various birds caught in the tendrils can be recognized (as in capital W06PP47). The birds bend downwards and attack the hares that cower on the ground. The motif is symmetrically repeated on all sides of the capital. It seems to have been inspired by the first workshop in the cloister of Santo Domingo de Silos.
Other similar motifs of birds or quadrupeds attacking animals represent in medieval iconography the eternal punishment and damnation that are the wages of sin. The tendril motif too, with figures caught in its interlaces, is a metaphor of the fetters of sin, while hares symbolize lust and fertility.
The impost is covered by a geometrical interlace, half star, half wickerwork, similar to other ornamental motifs in this wing of the cloister. The earliest Romanesque capitals with interlaced decoration of the kalathos in deeply carved relief are found in the cloister of Silos. However this kind of decoration has an oriental pedigree and is familiar at an earlier date in mosques in Egypt.

vegetal rabbit Bird