The Painted Heaven
The baldachin has always been an attribute of power, its form symbolising the celestial vault. Its function above the Christian altar had its origin in Palaeo-Christian Rome, where we find precedents for both the ornamented beam (fastigium), in that donated by Constantine to the Basilica of St John Lateran, and for the baldachin or ciborium itself, in Old St Peter’s in the Vatican. In the case of Tost, if the ornamented beam can be related to the painted decoration of the wooden ceilings in Catalan churches (“lignis dedolatis mirifice”, says the consecration of Cuixà in 953) or the Byzantine iconostasis, with which the most sacred space in the church was marked, the painted panel seems to reflect the forms of the vaults of the baldachins of the Western Church in the Upper Middle Ages.
The decoration of both elements at Tost, the beam and the painted panel, was intended to give an allegorical and eschatological image of Heaven and Earth. On both sides of the beam the decoration is in the forms of medallions that represent the Earth, and the battle between good and evil, following |
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the moralistic symbolism of the English Bestiaries: the warrior confronting the diabolical bear, the false centaur threatening the bull of Christ, the seductive siren with the grotesque Grylla, and the archer who lets loose his arrow against the virtuous and vigilant Crane. In the centre, in a plaster relief that was once gilded, the apocalyptic motif of the Lion of Judah is repeated, that is, of Christ victorious over sin and death (Revelations. 5, 5).
Finally, the painted panel, situated above the altar at which the Eucharist was celebrated, is decorated with the promise of eternal life, with a representation of the Second Coming of Christ, accompanied by the symbols of the four Evangelists (the Angel for St Matthew, the Lion for St Mark, the Eagle for St John and the Ox for St Luke) and showing the path out of darkness to Heaven: “I am the light of the world” (Ego sum lux mundi) (John. 8, 12). Even though it was made at a later date, the crowning crestwork, decorated with scenes of the Holy Supper, would have served to heighten the redemptive power of the sacrament of Eucharist. |
