The Aragonese government has requested the loan of five Sijena panels currently on display at the Lleida Museum for the temporary exhibition Renaissance Jewels in AragonAccording to information obtained by ACN, these are four pieces that formed part of the old main altarpiece of the Aragonese monastery, depicting Saint Paul, Saint Peter, Saint Ambrose, and Saint Augustine—attributed to the artist known as the Master of Sijena—and belonging to the Lleida institution. The fifth carving, Jesus among the doctors of the lawThe panel belongs to the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia), but is on loan to the Museu de Lleida. The museum has ruled out lending it for technical reasons, arguing that it would "dismantle" the permanent collection and alter the narrative, thus disconnecting the decision from the ongoing art dispute. The panels are on display at the Museu de Lleida and date from the Renaissance period. They were not part of the ninety disputed works that were moved to Sijena in 2017 after the Civil Guard raided the museum. Following the removal of works from the Lleida museum to comply with the Huesca court ruling, the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) loaned the panel. Jesus among the doctors of the lawThe piece, which was installed alongside the other four with the aim of strengthening the collection, was announced by the Lleida Museum to the Aragonese institutions on Thursday afternoon, as confirmed by ACN.

The lawyer for the Vilanova de Sijena City Council, Jorge Español, announced this Tuesday that he will file a lawsuit against the director of the MNAC. Pepe SerraThe lawyer is referring to statements made by Serra at a press conference on Monday, in which he questioned the lawyer's qualifications. Serra had requested the suspension of a listening session for Rosalía's new album at the Oval Room, citing concerns about potential damage to the paintings, without any prior assessment of their condition before they could be moved. According to media present, Serra said: "What's unacceptable is considering that a Rosalía concert could affect the paintings and that squeezing them into 74 pieces is easily done. Whoever says this should see a doctor."

The Supreme Court has already determined that the Generalitat She was not the owner of the original artifacts from the Sijena monastery that she had purchased in the 1980s and 90s. The sales were declared null and void because, according to the Spanish courts, the nuns were not authorized to carry out this type of transaction. These works, nearly one hundred in number, were on display at the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia) and the Lleida Museum until the courts ordered their removal. Financial compensation to the Generalitat (Catalan government), which paid approximately 50 million pesetas (300,000 euros) for the purchase, remains pending.

The legal dispute over the mural paintings in the Sijena monastery has been a fixture in the media for many years. The debate has intensified since last May when the Supreme Court upheld the ruling that required the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia) to return the frescoes to their original location. The controversy has become politically charged, and the noise has drowned out the nuances. On Sunday, the 30 minutes TV3 delved into the dispute between the governments of Aragon and Catalonia with an excellent journalistic report, both in content and style, which explored the case in depth and provided a better perspective. Sijena, condemned paintings It allowed viewers to understand the key aspects of the conflict and its details. It featured leading experts from both sides, and viewers could evaluate the arguments without intermediaries or biased interpretations. Art experts added essential considerations that justify the complexity of this case. The report was very clear and revealing from a historical perspective, supported by images and documents that refuted theories and conspiracies about looting and theft. It was also very honest in presenting the verified arguments of heritage conservation specialists.

The level of global recognition that Rosalía has just achieved is only possible with great talent, a love for the craft, and many hours of work. After some success that she could have extended, Rosalía took a risk, pushed pop to new limits, and earned top marks from critics and the public alike.

The president of Aragon has said these words about the Sijena works: "The sentence will be carried out willingly or by force." Deunidó, the phrase he uttered, while the MNAC (National Council of Aragon) declared "the technical inability to carry out the operation within the timeframe established by the civil procedure law."

A hominid takes a bone from the ground and throws it into space. A leap of 4 million years. The future is this bone made into a spaceship up there. The beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey It really happened to the Les Avellanes monastery. Today, the space-time capitombes never stop spinning. Stanley Kubrick already wants to get out of the coffin.

The mural paintings of Sijena were saved in the autumn of 1936 after a vandalistic attempt at their destruction by an anarchist group. They were rescued by Catalan technicians with the help of local residents, led by art historian and architect Josep Gudiol, who worked with Ventura Gassol, overruling the advice of his superior, Jeroni Martorell, who had canceled operations in the Aragon Strip because two young Service collaborators had been murdered by libertarian militias at the beginning of the war.strappo, the operation was successful and the paintings were transferred to Barcelona, ​​​​where they have been exhibited in the current MNAC since 1961. Before, at the end of the war, Gudiol's work was award-winning by Franco's regime, with the revocation of his architectural qualifications and an initial exile in France and the United States, where he had studied as a young man and as a university professor. Upon his return, following the example of the Frick Library in New York, he founded the Amatller Institute of Hispanic Art—in the Amatller house on Passeig de Gràcia—where he restored—and completed damaged parts—the paintings of Sijena, a jewel of the Romanesque.

There's been a lot of talk these days about the Supreme Court ruling ordering the return to Aragon of the paintings from the Sijena chapter house, works that have been in Catalonia for almost ninety years. Everyone is wondering what to do, and the president of the Generalitat of Catalonia responds that the courts' decision must be abided by, but at the same time, he wants to prevent the paintings from being damaged. There are well-known voices in the international museum community, alarmed, who consider the transfer of the paintings impossible without causing them damage. I share these views, but everything indicates that they will not be enough to stop the transfer. The truth is that the Aragonese courts will do everything possible to avoid halting the execution, and even more so will the Aragonese authorities, who, incidentally, are not in a position to ensure the proper conditions of the Sijena monastery to avoid damaging the paintings.

Clash of arguments between Catalan and Aragonese art conservators on the transfer of the mural paintings of Sijena, after the Supreme Court ruling which requires them to be returned to the monastery of Vilanova de Sijena. an operation "delicate in itself, like when they were moved to Barcelona," and which must be carried out under "specific conditions, with the technicians perfectly aligned so that the paintings do not suffer any deterioration," but argued that "there are segments that have traveled to New York and London, and within the MNAC they have been moved seven times." The MNAC has warned in a statement that the paintings present "extreme fragility due to the alteration of the pigments and support materials, as confirmed by several recent scientific studies." intervention that should be carried out to return the paintings to their original location", as well as "the real and stable environmental conditions that would be offered by the space" intended to house them within the monastery. For all these reasons, the CRAC supports the "conservation criteria expressed by the MNAC" and requests that any decision regarding the future of the paintings, the objective of guaranteeing their conservation for future generations."

Comparing the art of Sijena with that of Taüll helps us understand what a nation is. In both situations, mural paintings that adorned the walls of Pyrenean churches at the beginning of the 20th century were removed using the technique ofstrappo and taken to a museum for safekeeping. Unlike the treasures of the British Museum or the Louvre, which come from former plundered colonies, everything here would have been lost were it not for the Catalan institutions. But now Aragon is demanding the paintings be returned despite the risk of irreparable damage, while the inhabitants of the Taüll Valley are perfectly content with the interplay established between the replicas they have in their churches and the exhibition in the Romanesque galleries of the MNAC (where, incidentally, they have free admission). Why is no one from Taüll asking for the return of the originals?

The atavistic Spain-Catalonia conflict consists of the fact that Catalonia is attributed a Spanish identity of varying intensity, which Spain decides based on its interests and the political mood of each historical moment, with which it regulates periods of greater rights and stages of greater obligations, always with the strictest vigilance to ensure that Catalonia does not get out of hand.

The President of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), Salvador Illa, has asserted that he respects the Supreme Court ruling ordering the National Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) to return the Sijena paintings to Aragon. Speaking from Kobe, where he is on an official trip to Japan, as reported by the Catalan News Agency, Illa said he does not want to "obstruct" the ruling's implementation. "The framework of the ruling is what it is," said the President, who added that now we must "look forward" because "there is a ruling and that's how it is."

What the Supreme Court has decided on the Sijena paintings at the MNAC is irresponsible in regard to heritage. The paintings are like a sick person who is unable to move.