Not Gothic Cathedral

[porphyry]

With all the recent discussion of the Gothic lately, I thought I would post this, which I discovered quite by chance today:





The photo was posted on a Russian site, so I could not make out anything more than that the Chruch in question is in Barcelona. It turns out to be from Gaudi's Cathedral, of course. The only further information I could find listed Guadi himself as the artist. Does that mean he sculpted it himself, I wonder? The date given was 1926.

My first reaction on seeing this was, "Ah, so he's wearing lorica segmentata! that's right! Blame it on the Romans why don't you?" Herod's men probably would have worn differnt armor.

Probably a very eccentric thought.

Comments

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

Gaudi employed local craftsmen, like a good distributivist should.

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

Not an eccentric thought at all, that's the first thing that struck me too; but of course the sculptor would have imagined Roman soldiesr' garb as being the standard military uniform of the time. This was an area in which Roman rule was in fact pretty fascistic.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

"What about the Aqueducts..." I'm sure you know the rest.

[vonjunzt.livejournal.com]

I wonder what sculptures are around this one. The way the cloak is flared, I would bet the intent was to contrast these soldiers against St. Martin of Tours, who cut his cloak in half with his sword to share it with a beggar he met. Some legends say he later found the cloak hanging around the Corpus on a crucifix in a nearby church.



I wouldn't be all that surprised if Herod's troops looked a lot like Roman ones, though. After all, Judea had been subject to Rome for decades by that time. I'm sure there was a lot of borrowing Roman clothing styles -- and since Herod's rule relied on Rome's backing, he had every reason to want his troops to look like badass Roman ones. Herod did his best to play the part of the good Jew, but at the same time he was allied with the Hellenists who had been fighting the more separatist Jews since the days of the Maccabees.