La Catedral

Everyday on my fifteen minute walk to class, I pass on my right side La Catedral de Segovia. With its tall and decorative Gothic style architecture, so high that it blocks the sun from stinging my eyes, it did not seem likely that the amazing building would just be another reference point in my everyday routine. What I first saw as an astounding work of architecture jutting into the sky, craning my head just to get one more look, had begun to lose its magical touch with every time I walked past on the way to my house or to school. But today, I got the chance to relive that magic again, when we took a tour of the building I had almost forgotten.

At the end of the twelfth century a new artistic movement apart from Románico began to move into the Peninsula from northern France. As a protest against the excessive luxury of the order of Cluny, the monks of the order of Cister adopted a naked simplicity of architecture, of pointed instead of rounded arcs, popular among towns in northern Europe and the origin of the name "Gothic." Just as we can with the churches built in Románico style, our class can identify and explain the Gothic elements of the high columns, flying buttresses, vaulted ceilings, and gargoyles for both their symbolic and constructional value. However, it was seeing the beautiful works of art inside the building that truly left an impact that will change my view of the outside forever.

At the center of the cathedral, three aisles are formed that all lead to the highly decorated altar piece adorned with golden flowers and statues of baby angels surrounding Mary and her son Jesus. But I think that the most beauty is actually seen around the edges in the individual capillas that line the edge of the building, each dedicated to a religious figure and each with a story of their own to tell. Past each separate gate stands sculptures and altarpieces of Mary, Jesus, and certain saints. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are pictured holding their characterizing symbols of the angel, lion, ox, and eagle respectively. Spanish bishops are honored, their statues standing high in a three dimensional frame of gold above glass cases of robes worn by the men themselves. The room that had the greatest impression on me was the "Cristo Yacido," which contained a wooden sculpture of the crucified Christ laying in a glass box. Just the way he lay their, wisps of hair lightly touching the pillow as small streams of blood traced his skin flowing from his puncture wounds was eye-catching. And his brown eyes reflected such a serene agony that no matter your religion, you could feel his pain.

Although the cathedral is astonishingly gorgeous from the exterior view, the true beauty in its existence was meant to be in what it represents, the stories of the Bible and the institution of the Catholic church. With excessive ornamentation and brute realism, each capilla tells a story of its own more beautiful than the figures that represent it. After that visit, my morning walks past La Catedral will be forever changed. Maybe my eyes will still gaze beyond its colossal structure, but my mind will always wander inside, to the stories unseen for thousands of years.