Egron Lundgren - Procession during Holy Week in Seville, Spain

Egron Sellif Lundgren (1815–1875) Sweden

Procession during Holy Week in Seville, Spain

Black ink, pencil, brown and red wash heightened with white on brown paper
201 x 267 mm.

Literature:
Lady Louisa Tenison, Castile and Andalucia, London 1853, lithograph between pp. 201–202
K. Asplund, Egron Lundgren I. 1815–1859, 1914, Vol. I, p. 143, p. 145, illustrating the lithograph

Cf. Literature:
Marta Jiménez Miranda, The special relationship between text and illustrations in Castilla and Andalucia by Louisa Mary Anne Tenison, University of Córdoba, Spain, 2022, p. 245, fig. 5

Drawn in 1852 during the artist’s stay in Spain between 1849–53. Preparatory drawing for a lithograph in Lady Louisa Tenison’s Castile and Andalucia from 1853. Lady King Tenison (1819–1882) was the wife of the Irish photographer and politician Edward King Tenison. Between 1850 and 1852, King Tenison and his wife travelled in Spain for their artwork. As an early adopter of the calotype photographic process, he aroused suspicion and curiosity due to his bulky equipment and outdoor work. The work was later published as Memories of Spain in 1854, while his wife's 50 lithographs appeared in Castile and Andalucia in 1853. In 1853, he joined the Photographic Society of London, and first displayed his work at the Great Industrial Exhibition in Dublin. The next year, he then helped to found the Dublin Photographic Society.

In the preface of her book Lady King Tenison writes:

“The landscape and architectural drawings are from my own sketches, but the figures are from the pencil of Mr. Egron Lundgren, a Swedish artist now residing in Seville, whose admirable delineations of Spanish life and customs are well known to those who have had the pleasure of visiting his studio.”

Travelers’ books show an evolution of Holy Week as the centuries go by. From the 16th century, when travelers saw penance and the processional steps as an act of faith, until the 18th century, when they began to criticize the most irrational customs and the lack of faith of many participants who sought social prestige through the celebration or to hide immoral behavior. Lady King Tenison writes about the subject of the present work:

“The images or pasos belong to certain religious associations called Cofradias. Founded in days gone by, when faith prompted people to attend them, and look on them with some feelings of reverential awe; but that spirit has passed away, and now they are chiefly supported by the innkeepers and tradesmen of the town, who contribute largely to their funds, not from any devotional zeal, but as a source of profit, and from the knowledge that they attract a crowd of both natives and foreigners, and thus afford them an opportunity of considerably improving their temporal interests.”

In his two-volume book on Egron Lundgren, Karl Asplund writes about the subject (op. cit., p. 143):

“Processionen är som en scenbild ur någon opera à la Carmen; man tycker sig höra orkestermarschen, under vilken hela ensemblen tågar in och uppfyller scenen till en final.”
(“The procession is like a scene from some opera à la Carmen; you think you hear the orchestral march, during which the whole ensemble marches in and fills the stage for a finale.”)

Holy Week in Spain is the annual tribute of the Passion of Jesus Christ celebrated by Catholic religious brotherhoods (Spanish: cofradía) and fraternities that perform penance processions on the streets of almost every Spanish city and town during the last week of Lent, the week immediately before Easter. The processions incorporate different scenes from the Passion of Christ. Every brotherhood carries magnificent Pasos or floats with sculptures that depict different scenes from the gospels related to the Passion of Christ or the Sorrows of the Virgin Mary. Brotherhoods have owned and preserved these Pasos for centuries in some cases. Usually, the Pasos are accompanied by marching bands performing Marchas procesionales, a specific type of composition devoted to the images and fraternities. Since Holy Week coincides with Palm Sunday, the feast also commemorates Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In many Catholic and Episcopal denominations, worship services on Palm Sunday include a procession of the faithful carrying palms, representing the palm branches the crowd scattered in front of Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem.

The celebration of Holy Week regarding popular piety relies almost exclusively on the processions of the brotherhoods or fraternities. These associations have their origins in the Middle Ages, but a number of them were created during the Baroque period. The membership is usually open to any Catholic person, and family tradition is an important element to become a member or “brother” (hermano). Historically, the flagellants are the origin of the current traditions, as they flogged themselves to do penance. Pope Clement VI ordered that flagellants could perform penance only under control of the Church; he decreed Inter sollicitudines (“inner concerns”). This is considered one of the reasons why flagellants often hid their faces.

A common feature in Spain is the almost general usage of the nazareno or penitential robe for some of the participants in the processions. This garment consists of a tunic, a hood with conical tip (capirote or coroza) used to conceal the face of the wearer, and sometimes a cloak. The use of the capirote or coroza was prescribed in Spain and Portugal by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Men and women who were arrested also had to wear a paper capirote in public as a sign of public humiliation. The colour was different, conforming to the judgement of the office. People who were condemned to be executed wore a red coroza. Other punishments used different colours. When the Inquisition was abolished, the symbol of punishment and penitence was kept in the Catholic brotherhood. The exact colors and forms of the robes depend on the particular procession.

The robes were widely used in the medieval period for penitents, who could demonstrate their penance while still masking their identity, and were part of the uniform of some brotherhoods including the Nazarenos and Fariseos during Easter observances and reenactments in some areas during Holy Week in Spain.