PEDRET, Master of

Chronological framework

c. 1090-1117

Geographical Framework

Catalonia (Berguedà, Pallars Sobirà, Noguera) and France (Couserans)

Techniques

Fresco, with parts made in lime painting with tempera retouching. Use of inorganic pigments such as local aerinite for blue, goethite for yellow and haematite for red colour.

Profile and historiographical debate

Name given to a painter or a workshop active in the Pyrenean area between the ending of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th century. It is a local travelling workshop, characterized by his figurative language still inheritor of Late-Antiquity and Byzantine illusionism, which is based on the Mediterranean pictorial traditions. Well aware of the artistic and cultural traditions in Catalonia in the time of Abbot Oliba, he renews his repertoire incorporating the innovations of the Gregorian Reform art. Besides constructing faces with the Byzantine technique of the three circles and the three-dimensional research attempt regarding to bodies and spaces, he is characterized by the representation of the archangels, Gabriel and Michael, with its standards and phylacteries, saying “peticius” and “postulatius”. The post quem term is been given by the representation of Llúcia de Pallars, Artau I de Pallars' wife, in the apse of Sant Pere del Burgal. Llúcia is in charge of the county, between 1081 and 1090, after her husband's death.  Otherwise, the ante quem term is given by the consacration of Saint-Lizier de Couserans Cathedral, in 1117. Nowadays, his name is considered an historiographical convention due to the fact that its most important and, maybe oldest works, might be Santa Maria d'Àneu (post. 1087-1088) and Sant Pere del Burgal (post. 1095), and therefore he could be called also “Master of Àneu-Burgal”. According to this profile, the Gregorian and ecclesiological roots of his iconographic programs have suggested he could have been a clericus vagante, which is an ecclesiastic painter.

According to the comparisons established by Ch. R. Post (1930) between Pedret and Galliano's paintings, J. Gudiol considered him “a team of traveling painters closely related with the fresco painters which, during the XI century, revitalized the Byzantine formulas of North Italy (1980: 26-27). This profile of a Lombard travelling painter was developed by Geza de Francovich, J. Ainaud, A. Grabar, B. Al-Hamdani, J. Yarza, E. Carbonell, J. Ottaway, E. Alfani i M. Pagès. Even though, recently, M. Guardia, C. Mancho (2009) and M. Castiñeiras (2009, 2010), have vindicated a closer relationship of his repertoire with the Roman and the Southern Italy paintings, following the intuitions of J. Pijoan (1907), D. Miller, Ch. L. Kuhn, E. W. Anthony. Besides his technique and artistic palette, they both certifie a good knowledge of the local resources. 

Works

  • Apse of Santa Maria d’Àneu (MNAC)
  • Apse of Sant Pere de Burgal (MNAC)
  • Apses of Sant Quirze de Pedret (MNAC, Museu Comarcal i Diocesà de Solsona)
  • Apse of Sant Pere d’Àger (MNAC, Museu de Lleida Diocesà i Comarcal)
  • Apses of  Sant Liziers de Couserans

Patrons

Artau I and Llúcia’s sons, Artau II, count of Pallars, and Sant Ot,  bishop of la Seu d’Urgell (1096-1122) seem to be related to  Àneu and Burgal's paintings.

                                                                                            Text : Manuel Castiñeiras

Literature

PUIGGARÍ 1889: 105-110 ; PIJOAN 1907: 3-7; PIJOAN 1911; 67-73; RICHERT 1926; MILLER 1929: 20; KUHN 1930; POST 1930; POST 1941; ANTHONY 1951; COOK-GUDIOL 1950; FRANCOVICH 1955: 405-435; AINAUD-COOK 1957; GRABAR-NORDENFALK 1958; GUDIOL I RICART 1958: 191-194; CAZENAVE 1965: 75-77; AINAUD 1968; AINAUD 1973; AL-HAMDANI 1972-1973: 405-461; YARZA 1985: 218-234; CARBONELL 1990: 67-72, MORER-FONT-ALTABA 1993: 71-115; OTTAWAY 1994: 143-147; PAGÈS 2005; ALFANI 2006: 9-29; ALFANI 2007:  57-70 ; GUARDIA-MANCHO 2008: 117-159; CASTIÑEIRAS 2008: 21-87; PAGÈS 2008; CASTIÑEIRAS 2009: 48-66; CASTIÑEIRAS 2010: 276-290; WUNDERWALD 2010.