The Way of St. James and the Ring of Giges
Double Xacobeo, this year and next year. To get on the road and travel the mother of all roads in Europe, the National Library of Spain (BNE) has inaugurated a unique exhibition in which, through the explosion of posters from the early twentieth century, reconnects the Camino de Santiago with its Celtic and pagan tradition. This explains to a large extent the growing interest in the Camino de Santiago, which belongs to no one and to everyone, in particular to those who, united under the generic denomination of pilgrims, undertake and consume an absolutely personal path of self-knowledge.
The posters on display at the BNE reflect their recovery. Dissimilar but mysteriously united forces converge in this common enterprise. Galician artists such as Carlos Sobrino, Juan Luis Castelao, Carlos Maside and Camilo Díaz Baliño rescued Celtic and medieval myths, taking advantage of the last traces of 19th century romanticism. And they give way to a Way in which its route is embedded as a tourist activity. This is attested by the works of Eduardo Santonja or Hipólito Hidalgo de Caviedes, who already in the supposedly happy twenties aspired to attract locals and foreigners with slogans such as "Visit Spain" or "Spain is different", invented long before Franco's developmentalism used them in its advertising campaigns to attract international tourism.
Two formidable posters from the Civil War and its aftermath are on display: one from 1937 by José Caballero, Federico García Lorca's close friend and author of all the scenic framework of the works of the poet from Granada, the latter also represented by an original drawing. The other, drawn by the publicist José Morell Macías, shows a Santiago theatre during the 1940s. They precede the design and photographic posters of the 1950s, in which there are works by José García-Ochoa, Julián Santamaría, "the wizard of Letraset", founder of Grupo 13, and the National Prize-winner Francesc Catalá-Roca.
It was in the 1980s, the years of the Movida, when post-modern eclecticism and the professionalisation of culture brought great changes to the Way of Saint James, which thus became a global phenomenon. The old poster then incorporated graphic languages from comics, architecture, video clips, cinema and fashion. This is what the posters of Ángel and Álvaro Bellido, the publicist Luis Carballo Taboada, creator of the slogan "the wrinkle is beautiful" and who designed the Pelegrín mascot in 1993, or three emblematic artists of the eighties, who produced recent works inspired by the Pilgrim's Way: Ana Juan, Javier Mariscal and Ouka Leele.
Within the exhibition, the section Jacobean Comics takes advantage of the language of current cartoonists to renew in comic format the narratives of the Camino, bringing the tradition to our time, to reach a younger audience, without forgetting all the pilgrims who always walk the Camino de Santiago, from all corners of the world.
Coinciding with the opening of the exhibition, which is expected to travel to other Spanish capitals after passing through the BNE, its curator, José Tono Martínez, has brought to light his latest work, 'El anillo de Giges. Las peregrinaciones heterodoxas por Santiago' (Ed. Evohé). A tribute to Valle-Inclán and J.R.R. Tolkien and to the tradition of the ring initiated by this Thracian shepherd, if we are to believe Plato.
The author seeks to move away from the sweetened image of the ancient (and sometimes modern) pilgrim as being pious and holy, and focuses above all on the heterodox and alchemists, including Arnau de Vilanova, Raymundo Lulio and Nicolas Flamel, interpreters of the Hermetic Body and seekers of the Quintessence.
The forgotten also appear, the pilgrims, for every woman who goes on pilgrimage is a rebel, the Beguines of Hildegard of Bingen, witches and sorceresses, repositories of ancient knowledge. And also other groups made invisible by the exemplary history of the medieval pilgrim: boys and young men, beggars, the precariat and the hidden gay pilgrimage.
Exposure and reading of Tono's book help to conclude that the Camino de Santiago is not a combat with an eternal being, or with a contingent geography, but above all a combat from oneself or against oneself. The map matters little; the guide, less. And, as the author himself affirms, "it is necessary to be, above all, very patient, because the Camino is inside, let us not forget it".
Original and also of great interest is the final mural of the exhibition, a large collage composed of photos sent by thousands of pilgrims, each with their own particular vision of a detail that has been fixed on their retina. A massive and popular contribution, therefore, that accentuates the reality that the Camino is indeed everyone's and everyone's who walks it in whole or in part in any of its stretches spread over so many countries and continents.
