Una hagiografia pintada d’Ignasi de Loiola i d’altres imatges del fundador a Catalunya. Exemples de casos pendents d’estudi

Abstract

A painted hagiography of Ignatius of Loyola and other images of the founder in Catalonia. Examples of pending study cases

This article analyses paintings, sculptures and prints depicting the hagiographic story and the ecstasies of Ignatius of Loyola and certifies the difficulties involved in their examination in Catalonia. Some of these works have been relocated as a consequence of social and political turmoil, whether related or not to the Society of Jesus. However, by referring and inspecting documentary, literary, and visual sources, this paper posits an international contextual study that evinces the existence of common strategies in the visual language of the Society of Jesus, regardless of the artwork’s artistic quality. Likewise, in parallel with narrative images with an instructive and memory purpose, this article reconstructs – for the first time – sequences of images including local iconographies: Saint Ignatius’ stays in Catalonia (Montserrat, Manresa, and Barcelona), which address the aim to both incite devotion within the “natural” and to inscribe a founding and counter-reformist saint in the particular stories.