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Open Romanesque
New configuration of the apse of Sant Climent de Taüll
[Moja Palace. Department of Culture, Generalitat of Catalonia Barcelona]
[Eva Tarrida. Department of Culture Coordinator and Architect] The new configuration is aimed at revealing all the original sections of the apse.
In order to do so, some prior works had to be done.
First, Millet's copy was removed, and after that, the deeper layers
resulting from the detachment carried out in 1920 were restored.
The project also plans to include an audiovisual projection
that will provide an educational experience in three stages.
First, it will show the original sections now kept in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
that will be projected along with the deeper layers.
Second, it will include a hypothetical restitution which will show
what the paintings looked like throughout all the site,
including both the apse and the triumphal arches.
Third, and thanks to the lighting system, it will show all the original parts
remaining in Taüll, which are many: original sections
and deeper layer sections, from layers detached and kept in the MNAC.
[Church of Sant Climent de Taüll]
[Mercè Marquès. Krom Mural Painting Restorer] It is now 4th of April, and we have just finished
the first intervention phase, which is only documentary.
We have performed very precise measurements.
And then we have reproduced the walls on a sort of grid,
which helps us place each section, and each pathology and incident
we have encountered throughout the process.
After that, we are going to remove all the paint layers applied over
the deeper layers of the Romanesque mural paintings by the Master of Taüll.
The action performed here is purely mechanical. We remove, one by one,
the layers covering the remains of the original paintings using bistouries, trowels...
Some layout lines of the design by the Master of Taüll are starting to show,
and especially large masses of colour which match perfectly
with the iconography depicted in the site and exhibited in the MNAC.
[Eduard Riu-Barrera. Department of Culture Historical and Archaeological Research Manager] On the other hand, recovering the deeper layers of painting,
dated back to approximately 1123, and painted by the Master of Taüll on the apse walls,
has let us discover other painting remains
from previous phases of the church's decoration.
These previous phases, already suggested in previous works,
have provided more information,
especially about the three lower windows in the apse area,
which at first were decorated like the whole church with a white line
that ran between the ashlars (block stones used to build the church),
but that later were decorated with red geometric and floral motifs.
All this is prior to the final phase of Romanesque painting from around 1123.
[Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya Barcelona]
[Jordi Camps Chief Curator at the MNAC Medieval Division]
As usual, the deity is depicted on the vault of the apse.
This is called a theophany, which is the visible manifestation of a deity.
The deity is seated over the arch of heaven, making a blessing gesture
with His right hand and holding a book open with His left hand
where we can read: "Ego sum lux mundi", "I am the light of the world",
taken from the Gospel of St. John.
On the other hand, the apostles and Mary are depicted on the wall,
and all their depictions are framed by architectural forms.
It is interesting to see that there are marble imitations,
as if alluding to the heavenly Jerusalem, related to the concept of Paradise.
The image of Mary holding a paten stands out,
and it surely refers to the sacrifice of the Eucharist.
Also remarkable is the depiction of St. John the Evangelist,
which is at the same level as the one of Mary,
at the other side of the central window.
Also, we find St. Bartholomew, St. Thomas, St. James...,
all identified with inscriptions.
In the first section of the sanctuary, we can see the Hand of God,
now preserved at the museum, which is complemented by the preserved parts
of Cain and Abel's offerings, Abel being on the left, which are in the church.
The Hand of God points at Abel's offering and, at the other side,
there is a depiction of Abel's death at the hands of Cain.
Our task is to develop the project technically,
[Eloi Maduell. Playmodes Mapping Project and Technical Production] from the creation of the 3D model of the church to the installation
of the projectors and the software needed to display the mapping show
and all the in-between steps which allow us to have a virtual model of the church
and have the texture of the images that go over the walls.
We then pass it on to the content designers
for them to generate the video that will be shown during the mapping session.
Our studio has experience in mapping,
that is, projections on surfaces, basically façades, often in a show format,
a sort of public show in a public space involving a projection on a building.
This project is different, since it is a permanent installation.
It is not a show in itself, but a heritage restitution
of an original work of art which is being kept in the MNAC.
Somehow our work returns it virtually to Sant Climent de Taüll.
[Montserrat Cucurella. Department of Culture Architect] The architectural interventions in Taüll have been performed in two phases.
The first one started in November 2012 and included some preservation measures:
an external perimeter drain was installed and a general review of the roofing was done.
Also, the view of the original paintings was optimised:
a beam was removed because it was covering the paintings on the frontispiece over the apse.
[Eva Tarrida. Department of Culture Coordinator and Architect] Our project aims at highlighting the main features of the church:
first, the great value of these surfaces with remains of Romanesque painting
and the Romanesque pavement, visible after the excavation;
and second, the geometric irregularity of the church itself as a unique feature,
since it is not regular or orthogonal.
The project consists of a platform for both liturgical and cultural purposes.
It is intended to be a light and reversible item
which does not reach the valuable walls, so visitors can see
the relationship between the Romanesque pavement and the mural paintings.
Besides, the platform is not geometrically perfect.
It has been built to adapt itself to the "deformation" of the church
and its shape has been adjusted to each side of the wall.
On the other hand, this platform has a folded section at the back
which can be used for several things:
to hide all the equipment necessary for the video projection and lighting systems,
and to enable a better interpretation of the archaeological excavation.
[Carlos Padial. Playmodes 3D Expert] The process I am working on starts with the digitalisation of the church.
We use a laser scanner, a topographical device which throws
laser beams all over the church. Every two millimetres, more or less.
By doing that we get a point cloud,
some eight million points representing the apse and its surrounding area.
With this point cloud, a very dense high resolution mesh is generated
in order to have a three-dimensional model.
With this 3D model, we reconstruct a low resolution one which includes
the most precise details of the model, and then we can perform
a two-dimensional unfolding of the church, the apse and the lateral walls.
But then, at some point, with this 3D model, we must obtain the template for the illustrators.
In that model, several things have to fit together: all the information obtained
from the remains still at the church, which should be as much as possible;
the information related to Millet's copy; and, on top of both of them,
we have to overlap the pictures of the original work taken by Giribet at the MNAC.
In order to decide about the unfolding, we have to make
a number of rather difficult decisions about the topology of the model,
pointing out all the possible problems which may arise later on.
[Albert Burzón. Burzon*Comenge Video Mapping Producer] With the pictures from the MNAC I was given,
the existing paintings have been digitally restored
and all the damage caused by the passage of time or the detachment
(cracks, stains that should not be there...) has been mended.
All this has been cleaned so that the mural paintings look freshly painted.
Then, the second stage involves restoring the existing sections which have
very few remains, such as the images of Saint Clement or Saint Peter.
In these sections, we can find some shapes,
but the complete outline of the images and their colours and volumes are missing.
Then, thanks to these pictures, which are very large,
we have been able to enlarge it all. Following the existing outlines,
we have been able to reproduce the shapes of the faces, noses, bodies...,
and work out what clothing they might have been wearing.
And, from there, we have carried on painting...
The third phase is the reconstruction of the parts of which we have no remains at all.
After thoroughly examining the paintings, together with Eduard Riu,
we have worked out what these non-existing parts might have looked like in the past.
We have not invented anything, they are simply copies of existing things,
but they are "masked" so that they do not all look the same.
After that, we have done some research about shapes, colours, volumes,
brushstrokes, postures... about what the whole work was meant to look like.
The projection of paintings can be done in different ways,
[Eduard Riu-Barrera. Department of Culture Historical and Archaeological Research Manager] but we personally decided to divide it in two basic stages.
In the first one the whole painting is shown, that is, both the sections
remaining in St. Climent de Taüll and the ones taken to the MNAC in 1920.
In the second one, and thanks to the knowledge acquired after studying the painting
and comparing it with other Romanesque similar works, we have tried to reconstruct
and show the whole apse area as it would have been in 1123,
after a thorough restoring of all its sections.
In order to do so, we did graphic and document research
of all the old testimonies since the painting was discovered in 1904 up until now.
Then we reconstructed the paintings because,
unlike modern painting, which spreads on a surface with no precise distribution in space,
Romanesque painting had a very precise organization,
with particular chromatic and measure patterns.
After this, we were able to reconstruct or make hypothesis about the missing parts,
especially at the lower section of the apse, where there used to be paintings
imitating fine curtains and rich eastern fabrics.
The same was done with some of the missing figurative scenes,
which were very few, located mainly on the triumphal arches.
We compared them with other paintings like the ones in Mur or Pedret
and some of the latter's features were added to the paintings in Taüll
in order to fill the missing sections.
As for the central area where the apostles are,
both sides of it, which were missing or in very bad condition,
were completed after finding out about the image pattern.
To show the mapping work we have installed six video projectors
so that we can project on all the surfaces, both the walls and the central apse.
The technical design intended to minimise the visual impact of the devices,
that is, to hide them from the viewers.
We also have installed some monitoring computers
which project images or provide them to the projectors synchronically.
Of course, all the contents must be synchronised,
and we have to make the images coming out from the projectors
fit exactly with the real area they are representing,
so that every stain or paint fragment fits with the video we have generated.
This process is called "warping" and it lets us slightly distort the image
coming out from the projector, so that every single detail fits where it should be.
This is the main difference between mapping and traditional projections:
here we can fit the projection on a surface, an object or a painting
so that the video and the remains somehow fit together.
[Santi Vilanova. Playmodes Soundtrack Composer] The conceptual approach of the whole sound creation process for Sant Climent de Taüll
revolves around the idea of taking the viewers to the Middle Ages.
Just as the video shows the painting process and what the church looked like in 1123,
the music tries to do the same. We have tried to transport the viewers
to those times both through the video and the music and sound effects.
When composing this soundtrack, we first contacted a luthier
who specializes in medieval instruments,
and then we recorded the music of those instruments (hurdy-gurdies, fiddles, psalteries...)
used in the times when the apse of Sant Climent de Taüll was painted.
All these medieval timbres were then processed with digital tools
in order to get a mixture of those old sounds with current musical language,
so that the emotions of the visitors of Sant Climent de Taüll could be reached.
Church of Sant Climent de Taüll 23 November 2013
New configuration of the apse of Sant Climent de Taüll
Open Romanesque Program
Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia
and "la Caixa" Foundation
In collaboration with: Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
Project by: Eva Tarrida i Sugrañes. Architect
Eduard Riu-Barrera. Archaeologist Albert Sierra i Reguera. Historian
Pere Rovira i Pons. Restorer Jordi Camps i Sòria. Curator
Audiovisual project by:
Burzon*Comenge. Albert Burzón Playmodes. Eloi Maduell
Painting restoration: Krom. Mercè Marquès
Architectural project collaborator: Montserrat Cucurella Jorba
Church ownership and management:
Bishopric of Urgell and Consorci del Patrimoni Mundial de la Vall de Boí
Video produced by: www.calidos.cat