La alteridad bárbara: de las representaciones de lo fantástico en el Románico al hombre salvaje del Gótico final

Abstract

The medieval Christian society, strongly hierarchized, built a view of the world, where the Other is marginalized. In the Romanesque in Portugal, the alterity images are expressed in the fine arts through the illustration of the monster. The dragons, the mermaids and the centaurs play a place of subversion of the divine order. The wild man, whose representation scarces in the 15th century, became frequents in the burial sculpture and in the later gothics illuminated manuscripts. We want just to refer the demon, the dragons and the wild man wich rarely assume a character terrific as it is showed in another cultures. Most of this images are not aggressive, waking up a certain fascination for those who contemplate them. For this people that lived in the border or inside of the christian world, although scarce, the representations are centered in Arabian and Jew images. This Other appears in marginal positions and some them demonised, according the treatement of the artist of Lorvão Apocalypse, reflecting the anguish provoked by the advance Almóada.