JOSE EMILIO RUBIO ROMÁN

The liturgical celebration of the Holy Week finds an effective complement in the one that takes place in the streets, through the processions.

The processions get to consecrate the urban areas, to create a favourable atmosphere for the commemoration, to take the images of Christ and his Mother to meet the citizens, whether they are believers or non-believers, and the thrones where the sculptures are shown (of huge artistic value on several occasions) become real walking altars, lit with wax or electrical illumination, surrounded in incense and accompanied along the way by specific sacred compositions, the passionary marches, all of which forms a scenography subject to secular rules of behaviour that set up a real rite where faith, art and tradition are united.

This rite changes its substantial form from one region to another and, still inside of them, from one small town to another, according to its history, its people's characters, the climate or the urban area where it takes place. Contrasts, in that respect, the celebration of the processions in the north of Spain or in the austere Castile with what occurs in the south, in the cheerful Andalusia or the bright regions of the east coast, Valencia and Murcia. Since these passionary celebrations have the same starting point, that is, the plastic recreation of the mysteries of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, every region and town has adopted a peculiar course with the passing of centuries, determining different aesthetic configurations not exempted, nevertheless, from receiving influences from other territories.

The first penitential brotherhoods are, as we all know, of medieval origin, and their external signs —the processions of discipline that used to take place in the days of Lent and, especially, during Holy Week— can be considered similar to those from any other point of Spain, since they basically consist in a simple procession led by a cross, followed by "disciplinantes" (people who flagellate themselves during the Holy Week processions) and penitents lighting and dressed in coarse tunics and images of Christ and Mary in mourning on simple portable platforms.

That is how the first Murcian processions must have been too, probably arisen as a result of the doctrines of Saint Vincent Ferrer during the Lent of 1411. The Valencian saint was followed by companies of "disciplinantes" who went with him and gave evidence of conversion and penance at the end of extensive and heartfelt preaching of the Dominican.

However, according to significant experts at this phenomenon, such as professor Sánchez Herrero, one cannot talk with precision about Holy Week brotherhoods —as we know today— until the final years of the 15th century and, above all, from the 16th century. In Murcia, during the transition from 16th to 17th century it is documented the existence of penitential brotherhoods which have as their devotional matter the Blood of Christ, the way of Jesus Nazarene, the Loneliness of the Virgin, the Arrest or even the Resurrection, and it is at that time when the germ of the current fraternities appears firmly and definitely.

Throughout the second half of the 17th century and the majority of the 18th it will happen that the celebration of the Holy Week adopts its present aesthetic configuration, which will be influenced determinedly by the taste for baroque art, that will reach its highest splendour in the Kingdom of  Murcia all through the 18th century, and the constant presence of the Mediterranean "huertano" character.

Indeed, the strictly penitential and exemplary procession —simple and austere— gives way gradually to an external sign of faith that has a series of elements contributing to the achievement of a real "staging", conferring on the procession a position of show very typical of the Baroque. And the conception of the spectacular varies between each region and each city, being clarified, as I pointed out at first, by the local habits, the various artistic trends, the people's character and even the weather of the place.

The 18th century is, for Murcia, a golden age which starts with the bishopric of the bishop Luis Belluga —later cardinal— between 1705 and 1724. It is determinant for the future splendour of the Kingdom of Murcia the outstanding role represented by the prelate during the War of the Spanish Succession in favour of the Bourbon cause that, when all is said and done, wins, but also his huge labour of foundation of pious works, colonization of uninhabited wastelands, and boost the construction of some of the best buildings in the artistic Murcian heritage.

Within this favourable climate, and in an atmosphere prone to artistic creation, with churches, convents and brotherhoods placing orders constantly for the new temples that were replacing the ones destroyed by the catastrophic flood of Saint Callixtus, in 1651, Francisco Salzillo was born and developed his art.

The contribution of Salzillo to the baroque aesthetics

Francisco Salzillo was born in Murcia in 1707, to a Neapolitan sculptor, Nicolás Salzillo, and a Murcian woman. Since the death of his father, in 1727, he took care of his father's workshop, soon reaching prestige and a huge number of commissions.

Salzillo was the great creator of passion floats or processional groups (known in Spanish as "pasos") of the 18th century, and his extraordinary ability in this field is comparable to the skill achieved by Gregorio Fernández in the first third of the 17th century. The passion floats of Salzillo for the Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus Nazarene in Murcia, preserved and exhibited at the Museum dedicated to the sculptor, make up a unique collection and are the reflection, at the same time, of what the contribution of his author to the configuration of the Murcian Holy Week meant.

In fact, when Salzillo finalizes the series of groups and exempt images that the Brotherhood of the Nazarenes — whose first statutes are approved in 1600—  commissioned him between 1752 and 1778, it can be confirmed, to a large extent, that the baroque Murcian procession already has the main elements that define it aesthetically and give it its own personality: the baroque imagery, the characteristic sounds of the Murcian Holy Week —to which I'll later refer— and the peculiar clothing of the brotherhood members, altogether, within the framework of a city completely renovated throughout the 18th century and surrounded by a fertile irrigated region (known in Spanish as the Murcian "huerta") which represents the basis of its economic and social growth.

The old brotherhoods of Jesus Nazarene, mainly for having preserved their imagery and the Blood of Christ, are still nowadays the accurate reflection of that golden period when the penitential processions of Murcia were created, together with others, also from old times, or founded all through the last century, which have followed, to a greater or lesser extent, the aesthetics and staging turned ,with the passing of years and centuries, into a real religious rite inherited from generation to generation that surpasses all kind of ups and downs and religious, political and social unrest, including a Civil War —the one suffered during the period between 1936 and 1939— that forced several religious brotherhoods to rebuild their heritage completely.

He have referred earlier to the baroque imagery and specifically to the work of Salzillo, but even on a brief approach to the Holy Week of Murcia, it is only fair to remark that, although it is true that there is a before and after of Francisco Salzillo, those before and after have a full name.

Names, among the precursors, like Diego de Ayala or Domingo Beltrán, in the last third of the 16th century, not forgetting artists of the stature of Jerónimo Quijano or Jacobo Florentino. And as early as in the end of the next century, Nicolás Salzillo and Nicolás de Bussy, together with the presence of the Frenchman Dupart in the first years of the 18th century, are authors who are going to have an influence directly or indirectly on Francisco Salzillo's education.

From among the imagery prior to Salzillo deserves a mention the symbolic image of the "Preciosísima Sangre de Cristo" (The Very Beautiful Blood of Christ), head of the Brotherhood of the same name, that presides at the great procession of the penitents "coloraos" on Holy Wednesday night.

The passion float of the Blood shows the peculiarity of representing the Mystical Winepress, so Christ appears crucified only with his hands nailed, while his feet are pulled out from the cross and are situated on the receptacle where his blood pours, especially the blood gushing of his side, that is collected by a child angel in a chalice. The Christ is alive and produces the effect, as Díaz Cassou wrote in his "Pasionaria Murciana", of thinking that he is going to say something to you. Salzillo himself copied the brilliant work of Bussy in 1777 for the small Murcian town of Albudeite.

As for the work of Salzillo, the importance of his sculptural career is not limited to the quality and quantity of his production, but goes beyond its existence itself through his disciples and followers up to the present day. Some of his models have been repeated, with a bit of luck some of them, not only in the territory of the old Kingdom of Murcia, but also in distant places and with such tradition in processions and images like Malaga or Granada.

His best known passion float may probably be "la Oración en el Huerto" (the Agony in the Garden) of 1754, where he presents the fortunate innovation of doing without previous approaches, where Christ and the angel —referred to in the Gospel of Luke— are face-to-face, and puts the Celestial Comforter at the same level that Christ is, holding him in his agony while he points at the chalice of bitterness among the branches of a palm tree. Salzillo is a great designer and confirms it too in other splendid compositions, like "el Prendimiento" (the Arrest) or "la Caída" (the Fall), but he also proves signs of his genius with exempt images, like "la Verónica" (the Holy Woman Veronica) and, above all, "San Juan" (Saint John) and "la Virgen Dolorosa" (the Virgin of Sorrows).

Being full sculpted the first one, the Murcian craftsman imagined him as a handsome young man who precedes the Mother of Jesus on the Way of Sorrows, holding his cloak with his right hand while he points with his forefinger at the path followed by the Nazarene. The Virgin, on the contrary, is formal, of exceptional beauty, with grief written on her face, turned to the sky looking for solace. The fame of both pieces, imitated a thousand times —especially the Virgin—, is perfectly justified.

There are few who have tried to move away from the line marked by Salzillo's art in the last 200 odd years since his death in 1783. And the ones who have actually tried, have enjoyed the approval and blessing of the brotherhood members and the people only on rare occasions, since they are still faithful, mostly, to aesthetics and models that survive the passing of time and artistic waves.

One of those exceptions is the Murcian sculptor Juan González Moreno, who if during his early training received, as normal, the influence of Salzillo, he soon set his sights on his own style, combining skillfully classic models and typical resources of the traditional imagery along with modeling techniques, use of polychromes and composition of very personal scenes or groups, which pervade his work in a modern way compatible with the concept that the faithful and brotherhood members have of the devotional and processional images.

Author of numerous works of merit, the most renowned and important aspect of his contribution to the Murcian brotherhoods may be the floats of "el Lavatorio" (the Washing of the Disciples' Feet) and "las Hijas de Jerusalén" (the Daughters of Jerusalem), dated from 1952 and 1956, both for the Arch-brotherhood of the Blood, with what in the processional heritage of this popular brotherhood, the presence of the images created before Salzillo —from the referred Nicolás de Bussy— is combined with those from the school of Salzillo, created by his main disciple, Roque López, at the end of the 18th century, and also by the most relevant keeper of the "salzillesque" style in the past 20th century, José Sánchez Lozano, and with those from the most resolute innovator in the field of imagery within the limits of Murcia, Juan González Moreno, bearing in mind the recent contributions of José González Navarro, who is currently the most prominent images creator in Murcia.

The walking of the passion floats and the penitent's clothing

But Murcian processions are, in its aesthetics, much more than a nice collection of sculptures made by famous artists of different times, with Salzillo as axis and undeniable point of reference. There is a select group of characteristics that always seem surprising to the eyes of the spectator, for being real singularities that make the penitential processions of this city something unique of its kind inside the wide and valuable panorama of the Spanish and international Holy Week.

The images of the Murcian Holy Week are taken in a procession in neobaroque-inspired thrones, wood-carved and gilt, carried on the shoulders by a variable number of penitents which ranges between 16 and 52, depending on the size and weight of the processional passion float.

Unlike what happened in other Spanish towns, where the times of crisis led to the replacement of the bearers with wheeled-chassis, Murcia always carried its passion floats on shoulders, with a particular pace, different from the one used anywhere else: out of time, but measured; without swaying, but offering the feeling that the images are floating over the heads of penitents and spectators; with places assigned by the responsible for the throne's march —the portable platform corporal— where the mission that has to be done changes perceptibly depending on whether the loading is at the sticks or the platforms, the tip of the stick, the log or the clamp. Some brake, others push, those lift and, together, with no previous rehearsal, but rather with their lesson learnt due to generations of Murcian bearers who have been passing on the place and the art from father to son, it is completed the annual miracle of taking the Passion of the Christ to the streets, to meet Murcians and strangers the way only Murcia knows, through a happy, unique and unrepeatable combination of faith, art and tradition.

As unique and unrepeatable is also the clothing of the Murcian penitent, in particular the bearer's, who wears a peculiar attire where baroque and "huertan" elements are intermingle and, from a eighteenth-century sketch, finishes its shaping with several nuances until turning into a distinctive, identifying element of our Holy Week.

Because if there is something about the Holy Week in the city of Murcia that surprises the visitor, together with the warmth while delivering sweets and other food, which I'll later explain, is the clothing of the members of the brotherhoods and, in particular, of those called bearers or "estantes" in Spanish, that is, the penitents who carry the passion floats on their shoulders.

It might occur that the bearer is considered, because of his peculiar look and his function, the typical Murcian penitent. As a matter of fact, the two monuments in the city dedicated to the Murcian penitent are represented with a bearer.

The Murcian bearer wears on his head a short, blunt hood, "broad bean-shaped", as rightly defined by Carlos Valcárcel Mavor. This hood, which doesn't have the conical shape usual in practically every city in Spain, exposes the face, while the piece of cloth that falls across the back is decorated with a large flower or rosette. Silk ribbons situated on both sides were used long ago to adjust the hood by tying them up under the chin, although nowadays they only have a decorative function.

Still today, lots of bearers resort to a headscarf, tied like a "cachirulo" (a coronary scarf) and put under the hood to avoid the rubbing against their forehead and contain the sweat, which allows the appearance of the classic bearer—during the whole procession— to be completed with the headscarf knot around his head as essential and colouristic part of the attire.

The robe, actually. belongs to the penitent, so if it was worn as usual, it would reach the floor. But when you lift it up to the waist, tied with the "cíngulo" (a cord with a tassel), to form the belly bag, bosom or "sená", where the sweets and several gifts —that the penitent will give to the spectators during the four or five hours that the procession lasts—are placed, the robe stays slightly under the knee. To make the skirt full, the penitent bearer puts under his robe a starched "huertan" petticoat, whose hem peeps out under the robe. It is widely thought that, at first, the bearer used to gather up his robe to manage better when walking along with the float, but then made the most of the fold that was left around the waist to use it as a warehousing place.

Under the robe, the bearer wears a white shirt, a jacket —whose lapels adjust on the robe's collar— and a tie. In my opinion, the jacket and the tie are a symbol of the fact that the penitent, under his penitential robe, was dressed "in a formal way", with his best suit, in a manner  befitting the nature and the importance of the commemoration in which he was participating.

Finally, the bearer puts on a pair of "esparteñas huertanas" (esparto espadrilles tied with crossed ribbons to the leg) and dresses his feet and legs with the stockings known as "of repizco", with an openwork design and, on several occasions, embroidered by the mother, wife, girlfriend or sister with a passionary motif or, simply, with plant motifs. The stockings are attached with garters adorned with pompom or big flowers.

It is also worth of mention the clothing used by the steward, leader of the procession and collaborator of the penitent, clearly taken from baroque, since in addition to a hood with similar features to the bearer's, the steward decorates the robe —that in this case reaches the floor— with lace edgings in the cuffs and the front, simulating the laces from the old shirts, which in the baroque would show through those openings under the penitential robe.

The sweets

As I was saying earlier, in the belly bag, bosom or, as said in Murcian, "sená", that the robe forms when it is gathered around the waist, the penitent carries sweets (above all), some other foodstuffs like hard-boiled eggs, Easter cakes, small sandwiches or fresh beans, which are eaten uncooked in Murcia, as well as holy cards, medallions, brotherhood's badges and various gifts given to the crowd.

The delivery of sweets and other gifts is not only from Murcia, but here it takes an unusual prominence, and sometimes even excessive. The origin of this delivery of sweets and other gifts to the public must be looked for, according to experts, in the penitential offerings that the penitents used to do to atone for their sins. Moreover, as it happens that many of them, especially the float bearers, came from the "huerta" surrounding the city, and since they spent a lot of hours outside home and were people who had no means of support and in straitened circumstances, they brought with them lunch or dinner in order to get their strength back: food that they ended up sharing with the crowd, which sets up, in short, a beautiful tradition, a sign of the sharing between brothers and spectators and an expression of the generosity of the Murcian land and its inhabitants.

It should be noticed, however, that not every Murcian procession is alike in that respect, There are the classic ones, with delivery of sweets and other gifts and where the brothers sport, to a certain extent, the robe that intermingles baroque and huertan elements, and there are others that skip those elements and commit themselves to meditation and sobriety.

In this respect, the Superior Chapter of Brotherhoods, institution made up of the representatives from the 15 Holy Week brotherhoods existing in the city nowadays, has 10 fraternities whose aesthetic elements and staging are based on the Murcian tradition, and other five, all of them born after the Spanish Civil War, with a sober style and a greater accentuation of the penitential character.

The calendar of processions begins on Friday of Sorrows and concludes on Easter Sunday, without being any day currently where the roaming of the passion floats and the penitents along the streets is interrupted. But in this payroll must be included the Ways of the Cross organized by some brotherhoods, the processional moving of several images from one church to another and, of course, the official announcement, another peculiarity worth mentioning in this work.

The official announcement consists, basically, of an announcement of the procession, that takes place, generally, through the morning of the penitent procession's precious day. A group of brotherhood members and musicians walk round the streets and visit, depending on the brotherhoods, their members, the official institutions or the rest of the brotherhoods at their respective headquarters. This curious musical parade —to the rhythm of lively paso dobles, sometimes, or of passionary marches when the moment requires certain solemnity— helps most of the time in the mornings of Holy Week to create a favourable atmosphere so that the penitents go out later to take the Passion to the eyes of all and sundry.

The "burla" and the "auroros"

The description of the elements that make the Murcian Holy Week special wouldn't be completed if we omitted the musical section, but not to talk about bands and cornets and drums, although they exist —and very good ones in diverse points of Spain—, but to refer, at least briefly, to the groups of horn-carts and out of tune drums, popularly known as the "burla", and the bells of "auroros".

The presence of the "burla" or call in the Murcian procession dates from the 17th century. It is about a group of penitents with drums and long horns, so long, that they are transported by means of two small wheels situated at the opposite end of the mouthpiece.

Drums and horns take turns to play. The first ones emit a high-pitched, pitiful sound. The drums, with the drumhead covered with a piece of clothe to deaden the sound, reply to the first ones through a vibrating sound that has a dozen variations and includes the clattering sound of the drumsticks.

This characteristic sound basically fulfils two tasks, identified with the popular names these sections of horn-carts and out of tune drums receive: the official announcement and the "burla". The official announcement's purpose is, as its name points out and it has been told before, to announce to brothers and citizens, in general, the start of the procession.

The "burla" is, according to common belief, the role that the horn-carts and out of tune drums carry out when they participate in the procession accompanying a passion float, usually a scene where bucellarii and soldiers batter Jesus: Flagellation, Crowning with Thorns. Ecce Homo, Way of Sorrows... As if it was meant to demonstrate the suffering of the Redeemer by emphasizing it through those sounds, reminiscent, at the same time, of the sounds accompanying the convicted people on their way to the execution.

I have mentioned the "auroros" too, the singers from the Murcian "huerta", choirs who sing particular psalmodies that, according to some experts, could be of Byzantine origin. The "auroros", groups composed up until a few years ago exclusively of men, come together in bells, taking the name of the sole instrument used to accompany their voices, except at Christmas time, when guitars, violins or tambourines are introduces.

On the eve of the feast of Saint Joseph, it starts every year the cycle of Passion, during which the "auroros" sing the allusive Salve Regina to the sorrows of the Most Blessed Virgin and to the sufferings of Christ. When Maundy Thursday comes, all the auroros' bells get together at San Agustin Square in the middle of the afternoon to sing their salves opposite the Church from where the procession of Jesus Nazarene is leaving on Good Friday's morning. And at night, they will perform again with their ancestral canticles to the pace of the processions of the Silence and the Loneliness.

These are, broadly speaking, some of the distinctive elements of the Murcian processions, some of the rites and expressive forms inherited from the past, transmitted through generations. A lot more could be said on this matter, but it seems enough, for now, to offer a general view about the staging of the Holy Week processions of Murcia.

A Holy Week that lasts, actually, as has been said above, ten days, from Friday of Sorrows to Easter Sunday, but it is prepared in the bosom of the brotherhoods by means of a busy schedule of worships and gatherings, especially throughout Lent, and its arrival is awaited all through the year.

There are 15 brotherhoods that organize a total of 16 processions and mobilize thousands of penitents, besides the contests for musicians, florists, carpenters, electricians, needlewomen, goldsmiths, wood carvers, sculptors... to make possible the annual miracle of the staging of those penitential processions that bring outside to the Murcian streets, in a spring atmosphere of Mediterranean light, scented with incense and orange blossom, the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Christ, represented with a total of 85 passion floats carried on the bearers' shoulders thanks to their goodwill and with the accompaniment of the sounds of the "burla" and the passionary music.

Aesthetic configuration of the Murcian processions.