Estos son días de visitas a los cementerios según la tradición española de la fiesta de todos los Santos, y días de murciélagos según la incorporación a Europa de la norteamericana fiesta de halloween.
Ahora mismo para la cultura occidental los murciélagos son seres negativos, terroríficos y de mal agüero, pero no siempre ha sido así.
Nuestro amigo Jens Rydell y sus colegas acaban de publicar un artículo muy chulo sobre el cementerio parisino de Père-Lachaise, el más grande intramuros de la ciudad donde están enterrados un montón de personalidades famosísimas. En el trabajo han recogido la presencia de numerosos panteones de la época Romántica (1820-1850) con representaciones de murciélagos bastante realistas y aparentemente sin intentar evocar miedo ni enviar mensajes diabólicos. En aquella época estaban de moda y caían mejor que ahora. No te pierdas las fotos del artículo:
http://secemu.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Rydell_et_al_2018.pdf
Y este es el resumen en inglés:
ABSTRACT
The bats´ elusive life style and unusual appearance have always stimulated peoples´
imagination, perhaps more so than any other animal. Since medieval times the church
has associated bats with the Devil as well as death, darkness and the underground, and,
not surprisingly, bats have obtained a given place in folklore, art and fiction. In this paper,
we present a remarkable display of bats in Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (the Père Lachaise
cemetery) in Paris. The bats are symbolic and occur on vaults from the Romantic period
(1820-1850), a passage of European history when bats were quite popular ingredients in
artwork and literature, particularly in France. Most of the bat sculptures in Père Lachaise
are quite realistic and apparently without any intent to invoke fear or send evil messages.
They are typically displayed on the steel gates of the tombs and symbolise death and the
long night before the flight to heaven. They often occur in association with an hourglass,
a winged skull and/or an ouroboros, icons of the ephemeral nature of life and the eternal
cycle of life and death, respectively. We speculate that the bat symbols could also have an
apotropaic function, protecting the tomb and its inhabitants from evil forces and/or bad
luck. The reputation of bats in Europe has not always been as negative as it is today, and
those at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise illustrate its diversity and complexity. The tombs with
bats in this cemetery are exclusive and exceptional items of human cultural history and we
would strongly appreciate if they would be preserved for future studies and enlightenment.
Ahora mismo para la cultura occidental los murciélagos son seres negativos, terroríficos y de mal agüero, pero no siempre ha sido así.
Nuestro amigo Jens Rydell y sus colegas acaban de publicar un artículo muy chulo sobre el cementerio parisino de Père-Lachaise, el más grande intramuros de la ciudad donde están enterrados un montón de personalidades famosísimas. En el trabajo han recogido la presencia de numerosos panteones de la época Romántica (1820-1850) con representaciones de murciélagos bastante realistas y aparentemente sin intentar evocar miedo ni enviar mensajes diabólicos. En aquella época estaban de moda y caían mejor que ahora. No te pierdas las fotos del artículo:
http://secemu.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Rydell_et_al_2018.pdf
Y este es el resumen en inglés:
ABSTRACT
The bats´ elusive life style and unusual appearance have always stimulated peoples´
imagination, perhaps more so than any other animal. Since medieval times the church
has associated bats with the Devil as well as death, darkness and the underground, and,
not surprisingly, bats have obtained a given place in folklore, art and fiction. In this paper,
we present a remarkable display of bats in Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (the Père Lachaise
cemetery) in Paris. The bats are symbolic and occur on vaults from the Romantic period
(1820-1850), a passage of European history when bats were quite popular ingredients in
artwork and literature, particularly in France. Most of the bat sculptures in Père Lachaise
are quite realistic and apparently without any intent to invoke fear or send evil messages.
They are typically displayed on the steel gates of the tombs and symbolise death and the
long night before the flight to heaven. They often occur in association with an hourglass,
a winged skull and/or an ouroboros, icons of the ephemeral nature of life and the eternal
cycle of life and death, respectively. We speculate that the bat symbols could also have an
apotropaic function, protecting the tomb and its inhabitants from evil forces and/or bad
luck. The reputation of bats in Europe has not always been as negative as it is today, and
those at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise illustrate its diversity and complexity. The tombs with
bats in this cemetery are exclusive and exceptional items of human cultural history and we
would strongly appreciate if they would be preserved for future studies and enlightenment.
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