In all my time in Europe, I have to say that one thing I've grown rather fond of is pillars. Big, huge, stone (or concrete), Romanesque towerlets that burst out of the ground and yawn out into the open ceiling of a church building like a tree, supporting the dazzlingly (monstrously, freakishly) huge construct like an immortal giant of interminable strength and patience.

The pillars of Spanish churches have a distinct quality. Perhaps it belongs to all European churches and I never noticed it before now. But I can think of two profound examples of Spanish churches with sunken, bent, crooked pillars.

One, the Colexiata do Sar, can be read about here:

http://www.turismogalicia.info/ciudades/gallego/santiago_gz/santiago_gz1.html

The other, my now regular place of worship, is San Martin, which sits inconspicuously behind the southwest corner of the busy Plaza Mayor of Salamanca. You can see a great picture of the front door here:

http://www.salamancaenlared.com/turismo/ruta1/ruta1.htm

Imagine me walking in there every night at 8:00 PM! Hi everyone!

Anyway, back on topic. San Martin is old. Very old. And old, heavy things built on soft earth... well, they sink.

But in San Martin, this is not obvious at first unless you take a good look at the Blessed Sacrament chapel, or look at the whole edifice from the back pews. The intimidating pillars, especially on the right side, are all arched inwards, with obvious plaster repairs made to their most stressed parts. Some hallways are so crooked that they assume a parallelogram form.

The whole effect is startling. I'm in a dream! I'm in a surrealist painting! The sky is falling! But once the initial pang of other-worldliness subsides (it happens slowly), these crooked titans take on a new life.

What kind beings, I wonder. Ungloried, unsung, they do the tedius business of preservation; they present to me the gift of this precious place, though it breaks their backs to do so. They are the grandmothers who have outlived their entire progeny. I can think no more or less of them, except to thank their builders who were surely inspired and moved by God in their own small way.

I will miss pillars when I go back to Arizona.

-- Skoobouy (skoobouy@hotmail.com), August 11, 2003

Answers

-- (top@top.top), August 11, 2003.