Thursday 8 January 2009

Catedral de la Santa Creu i Eulalia (La Seu), cloister

21 November, mid afternoon, the light creating dramaticules.



The sun moving quickly, this time of day, this time of year, the cast shadows changed perceptibly their configuration upon each circumambulation of the cloister that I made.

The cloister chapels are closed with gates of forged iron dating back to the fourteenth century.


Robert Hughes becomes particularly rhapsodic over the cathedral cloister (Barcelona, 1992, chapter 3, V) and describes its role in the feast day of Corpus Christi. On the northern side of the cloister is the cathedral museum. Fine examples of High Gothic Catalan painting are to be seen here and in the altarpieces of the cathedral itself.

(Bartolomé Bermejo (1436-1498), Pietà of Canon Luis Desplá, 1490.)

The resident geese of the cloister were not cooperative with regard to being counted - I readily put my faith in there being thirteen, one for each year of the life of the martyred Santa Eulalia.
There are also an uncountable number of goldfish and coins in the pools of water in the cloister garden; the goldfish eerily still —perhaps world-weary— reflecting mutely upon the tarnishing colours of the coins resting at an indeterminate depth below.

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