ALFONS PUIGARNAU
Alfons Puigarnau was born in Barcelona city in 1968. Catedrático with 4 Research-sexennial at the Spanish Agency for Higher Edication Quality (ANECA). He graduated in History of Art at the Universitat de Barcelona with honors and got his doctorate in 1999 with a thesis on the reception of the symbolism of light in the Romanesque iconography of Maiestas Domini. Professor of Aesthetics at the School of Architecture of UIC Barcelona until 2022. He is a scholar of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies and member of Sigillvm. Visiting scholar at The Warburg Institute since 1995. Currently publishes in academic Journals and often lectures before a wide range of audiences. Since 2011 he is the Editor in Chief of The Vitrubusier Foundation Press, based in the cities of Barcelona and New York.
His current fields of research are:
Critical Thinking in Art and Architecture
Aesthetics and Urban Experience
Philosophy of Image
Alfred Hitchcock: Cinema and Phenomenology
Neoplatonism in Art
Romanesque and Liturgy
Medieval Sigillography and Representation
Medieval Political Theology
Historiography and the Middle Ages
Warburgian Cultural History
Phone: +34696750857
Address: Doctor Carulla 47 A5
E-08017-Barcelona
SPAIN
His current fields of research are:
Critical Thinking in Art and Architecture
Aesthetics and Urban Experience
Philosophy of Image
Alfred Hitchcock: Cinema and Phenomenology
Neoplatonism in Art
Romanesque and Liturgy
Medieval Sigillography and Representation
Medieval Political Theology
Historiography and the Middle Ages
Warburgian Cultural History
Phone: +34696750857
Address: Doctor Carulla 47 A5
E-08017-Barcelona
SPAIN
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Papers on Medieval Studies by ALFONS PUIGARNAU
Archives in New York City. The “Phases of Medieval Rulership” is a little corpus
of unknown pages where the German historian had drafted in the 40s of the 20th
century the project of a new book that ultimately remained unpublished. In this
article, the author analyses the contents of this book comparing different manuscript
versions and explaining the historian’s version of Medieval history in terms of
political theological rulership.
In a similar way, Warburg is also capable of "globalizing by visualizing" through the same idea of a visual atlas of memory, where his panels carry on their shoulders the same globality of all the problems of the earth, in the manner of Atlas who thinks everything, who feels everything and who carries it on his back because Zeus has condemned him to carry on his shoulders the weight of everything in the heavens.
Explicación de la afinidad entre Johan Huizinga y Aby Warburg en la manera como ambos invocan el pasado mediante poderosas imágenes que ofrecen la visión global de toda una época. En Huizinga la imagen de la decadencia del siglo XX es expresada mediante la noción de «otoño», el personaje de Felipe el Bueno que representa la necesidad de que un hombre se sacrifique por todos, las sombras del mañana es como un icono de la incertidumbre, o la imagen del restablecimiento de una civilización para retratar la crisis del presente.
De un modo parecido, también Warburg es capaz de «globalizar visualizando» a través de la misma idea de un atlas visual de la memoria, donde sus paneles llevan a cuestas la misma globalidad de todos los problemas de la tierra, al modo del Atlante que todo lo piensa, que todo lo siente y que lo lleva a sus espaldas porque Zeus le ha condenado a cargar sobre sus hombros el peso de todo lo que hay en el cielo.
Archives in New York City. The “Phases of Medieval Rulership” is a little corpus
of unknown pages where the German historian had drafted in the 40s of the 20th
century the project of a new book that ultimately remained unpublished. In this
article, the author analyses the contents of this book comparing different manuscript
versions and explaining the historian’s version of Medieval history in terms of
political theological rulership.
In a similar way, Warburg is also capable of "globalizing by visualizing" through the same idea of a visual atlas of memory, where his panels carry on their shoulders the same globality of all the problems of the earth, in the manner of Atlas who thinks everything, who feels everything and who carries it on his back because Zeus has condemned him to carry on his shoulders the weight of everything in the heavens.
Explicación de la afinidad entre Johan Huizinga y Aby Warburg en la manera como ambos invocan el pasado mediante poderosas imágenes que ofrecen la visión global de toda una época. En Huizinga la imagen de la decadencia del siglo XX es expresada mediante la noción de «otoño», el personaje de Felipe el Bueno que representa la necesidad de que un hombre se sacrifique por todos, las sombras del mañana es como un icono de la incertidumbre, o la imagen del restablecimiento de una civilización para retratar la crisis del presente.
De un modo parecido, también Warburg es capaz de «globalizar visualizando» a través de la misma idea de un atlas visual de la memoria, donde sus paneles llevan a cuestas la misma globalidad de todos los problemas de la tierra, al modo del Atlante que todo lo piensa, que todo lo siente y que lo lleva a sus espaldas porque Zeus le ha condenado a cargar sobre sus hombros el peso de todo lo que hay en el cielo.
Theological reflection on the important overlap between art and theology, especially since the second half of the 20th century.
Some relevant questions containes are: Which art carries the representation of the mysteries of the faith further, Catholic art made by Catholics or Protestant art made by Protestants?
Or that of Catholic artists who accepted commissions from Protestants? And at the same time, which theology best explains the image of God (including his its presence in music and other performative arts, as well as film), Protestant or Catholic? or the Catholic one?
Se explica el sentido de la metáfora del cuerpo humano -"anatomía"- aplicada a una distribución por capítulos que recorre el sistema pulmonar, la piel, el esqueleto, el corazón, etc. para que el lector comprenda un hilo conductor "orgánico" que le sirva de eje metodológico.
Explicación de la diferencia entre "espacio" y "lugar" : el "yo geográfico" y el "yo anatómico" permiten entender la dimensión física y existencial del suspense como categoría estética típica de la Postmodernidad.
Text justifying the contents of the book by commenting on the table of contents in terms of a methodology for analysing Alfred Hitchcock's suspense based on a realist phenomenology.
It explains the meaning of the metaphor of the human body - "anatomy" - applied to a distribution by chapters that covers the respiratory system, the skin, the skeleton, the heart, etc. in order for the reader to understand an "organic" thread that serves as a methodological axis.
Explanation of the difference between "space" and "place": the "geographical self" and the "anatomical self" allow us to understand the physical and existential dimension of suspense as an aesthetic category typical of Postmodernity.
This recreation was meant both as an example of the invention of tradition in the context of Catalan nationalism and as a way to promote the city through spectacular historic monuments. Urban Scenography, and especially the work of Camillo Sitte, «Art of Building Cities: City Building According to Its Artistic Fundamentals» (1889), was the main criteria followed in the Barcelona plans.
In this way, Barcelona used the Gothic Quarter as an idealisation of the Middle glorious Ages but in following Sitte was able to create a very especial urban scenography, plenty of suspense and credibility for tourists and locals. A real narrative of the space to be debated in terms of authenticity, legitimacy and historical perspective.
This book explains, as a narrative biopsy, how Alfred Hitchcock's visual strategies anticipated Postmodernism. Hitchcock's cinema is useful for understanding the true nature of projected space.
The reader can review the space of film and architecture in the company of Hollywood stars and and prominent aesthetic writers of all times.
Hitchcock was also inspired by masterpieces of the golden age of painting, classics of Western philosophical interpretation and the great orchestral music of soundtracks that have not lost their relevance.
In the 12th century European context, predominates the iconography of Christ placed in a light mystic mandorla holding an open book containing inscriptions concerning a special theology of light.
The Maiestas Domini iconography strongly arises together with the historical fact of the agustinian liturgical movement. The so called agustinian canonigas were originally born in saint Ruph of Avignon and saint Victor of Marseille holding the spirituality of the Rule written by saint Agustin himself and later moved into Cataluña renewing his original idea of neoplatonic mystical beauty.
The arrival of collections of manuscripts into Catalonia containing the Homily to the Prologus of saint John by Scotus Eriugena is enough to proof the relationship between the theology of light iconography and the neoplatonic traditions originated in the 9th century Carolingian Court.
The text of the Vox Spiritualis Aquilae involves a reception of the Theology of light within the Maiestas Domini iconography. It is a new way of representing God, man and world in art.
SPANISH
En el contexto del siglo XII europeo, se impone la iconografía del Cristo Luz aureolado por una almendra mística, sosteniendo un libro abierto con inscripciones alusivas a una teología de la luz.
La proliferación de la iconografía de la Maiestas Domini se produce en el contexto histórico de la reforma litúrgica canóniga agustiniana, cuyo origen se encuentra en san Rufo de Avignon y san Víctor de Marsella. Cataluña, se hace depositaria de la Regla se san Agustín, que propugna un ideal renovado de belleza mística neoplatónica.
La llegada al Principado de manuscritos de la Homilía al Prólogo de Juan, escrita por Juan Escoto Eriúgena, es una prueba, en pleno siglo XII, de la relación entre una iconografía teológica de la luz y una tradición neoplatónica originada en el siglo IX en la corte carolingia.
El texto de la Vox spiritualis aquilae representa la recepción de la teología de la luz en la iconografía de la Maiestas Domini y, con ella, una nueva forma de representar a Dios, al hombre y al mundo en el arte.
This article for METROPOLI ABIERTA BARCELONA digital newspaper sharply criticises the different policies of the Barcelona City Mayor concerning its urban infrastructures, cultural orientations for the whole city, and a demagogic general outlook designed by bureaucratic politicians with a vague idea on how to orient the future of one of the most touristically successful cities in the world.