Apostles from Àger
Master of Pedret, 1100
The two Apostles from Àger are surviving fragments of the painted decoration of the church of Sant Pere in Àger, now in ruins. The church was the seat of a community of regular canons exempt from the bishop of Urgell and endowed with extensive estates. Of the paintings that once covered it, only scattered pieces remain from the main and southern apses. The most complete of these is the pair formed by Thaddeus and James, placed in the first arcosolium of the central apse. Both face the viewer in a rigid, hieratic stance, holding scrolls or books that they switch between hands, and the colours of their haloes and garments differ. The beardless figure on the left is Thaddeus and the bearded one on the right is James, as the inscriptions show. The style belongs to the so-called Pedret Cercle, with Lombard influence, and is closely related to the paintings in the cathedral of Saint-Lizier in Couserans. Each niche of the apse probably held a similar pair, together forming a complete college of apostles. Such an image made sense in Augustinian chapter houses, linked to the Gregorian reform and to the wish to protect the independence of the Church from secular power.
- Painter
- Master of Pedret
- Date
- 1100
- Medium
- canvas, fresco
- Dimensions
- 2800 × 1445 cm
- Museum
- Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona
- Genre
- religious art