Purgatory

This small figure conveys the sense of urgency which Paul expresses in his description of a purifying fire and a narrow escape from damnation—it represents a soul pining for release from Purgatory, hands clasped to its chest in a pleading attitude.

Wooden statuettes of a single soul in Purgatory are a typical product of Puerto Rican folk carvers or santeros, whose creations are known locally as santos de palo. Although examples of this iconographical variant from around the 1700s can also be found in the wider Spanish Caribbean, the Puerto Rican case is unique in that the tradition of depicting the ánima sola survived well into the twentieth century.

Objects of this type have often been characterized as folk art, in contrast with those made by professionally-trained artists, which were usually shaped to a greater extent by the weight of conventions and the scrutiny of religious authorities. Owing to the lack of contemporary documentation or artistic literature about them, it is difficult to establish the exact meaning which these carvings held for their original makers and owners.

Traditional santos de palo were made for a domestic context, in which the depiction of a single soul may easily encourage its identification with a departed parent, spouse, child, close relative, or friend. According to some studies in folk religiosity, however, the ánima sola was an invitation to imagine the most forsaken soul of Purgatory, that of an individual whom no one remembers, who is therefore most in need of the viewer’s prayers. Both possibilities attest to the role played by questions of identity in regard to the emotional appeal of images of this kind. In addition, ánimas solas subvert the usual order in that they represent someone to pray for, rather than gain favours from, unlike other intercessor saints and heavenly benefactors with which it may have shared a home shrine.

All in all, representations of the ánima sola evidence the variety and vitality of artistic responses to the idea of Purgatory generated within the context of a global religion.

References

Netto, Elizabeth, Calil Zarur and Charles Muir Lovell (eds). 2001. Art and Faith in Mexico: The Nineteenth-Century Retablo Tradition (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico) 2001, pp. 232–6, 325

Taylor, René, et al. 1993. Colección de arte latinoamericano/LatinAmerican Art Collection (Ponce: Museo de Arte de Ponce)

The purifying fire discussed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 3, understood as an allusion to Purgatory, was often interpreted in connection with a passage in the Old Testament Apocrypha (2 Maccabees 12:38–45) in which prayers and offerings are made for the benefit of those who died having committed idolatry. In light of the latter passage, it was thought possible to reduce the time the souls of the departed spent in Purgatory by carrying out certain actions, which gave rise to a variety of practices and visual representations.

In Galicia, in the north-western corner of Spain, a particular type of economy between the living and the dead was focused on small wayside shrines dedicated to the souls in Purgatory, such as this one (known as petos de ánimas). Besides reminding passers-by to offer their prayers and votive candles, each peto was also a collection box in which alms for the poor could be collected on behalf of the souls in Purgatory, which also helped their ascent into Heaven. In return, souls liberated from Purgatory would afterwards vouch in Heaven for the good deeds of their benefactors on earth.

This reciprocal aspect of the beliefs surrounding Purgatory is reminiscent of the Roman cult of the di lares, just as, coincidentally or not, the peto de ánimas is similar in appearance to the lararium found in Roman households. A specific sub-type, the lares viales, to which wayside shrines were dedicated, were themselves a Roman translatio, or adaptation, of beliefs held by the local Celtic peoples. Thus, petos de ánimas may be regarded as a fascinating window into a multi-layered past made out of permeable categories, in which each successive belief system finds ways to cohere with its predecessor.

From the earliest medieval examples, depictions of Purgatory often show men and women belonging to different social groups to signify the levelling aspect of death. In its proper context, the small cathedral town of Tui, this shrine is a powerful and somewhat subversive reminder that nobody is free from sin, as the soul in the middle prominently sports a bishop’s mitre.

References

Abad, Rosa Brañas. 2007. ‘Entre mitos, ritos y santuarios: los dioses galaico-lusitanos’, in Los pueblos de la Galicia céltica, ed. by F. J. González (Madrid: Akal), pp. 77–443

Sofroniew, Alexandra. 2016. Household Gods: Private Devotion in Ancient Greece and Rome (Los Angeles: Getty Publications)

The several naked men and women in this engraving are depicted as immersed in a fire that ‘will test what sort of work each one has done’, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 3:13.

The lapping flames become confused with the women’s long locks of hair, creating the impression of an indeterminate multitude. Still, each figure has distinctive facial features, indicating that it corresponds to a different individual’s soul. Rather than suffering from the flames, the souls seem to pine for Heaven, represented in the print by the monogram IHS (‘Jesus, Saviour of Mankind’) surrounded by a burst of rays. Two winged children on either side point at the monogram, while simultaneously extending a hand to hoist a soul out of Purgatory and up into Jesus’s presence in Heaven. The souls are literally saved ‘through fire’ (1 Corinthians 3:15).

Flemish engraver Cornelis Galle (1576–1650) envisioned this print after a detail from an altarpiece painted by Peter Paul Rubens between 1630 and 1633, which depicts St Teresa interceding for the souls in Purgatory. The altarpiece, which was originally destined for the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Antwerp and is now in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (inv. no. 299), was designed to act as a powerful reminder of the ability of certain saints to channel the prayers of the devout and help the ascent of souls from Purgatory into Heaven.

Galle adapted the image by cropping out the figures of Christ and St Teresa and focusing only on the lower section with the souls in Purgatory. On the bottom he added a Latin inscription taken from Job 19:21, which in this context reads as if it were addressed to the viewer by a soul in Purgatory: Miseremini mei, miseremini mei, saltem vos amici mei, ‘Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, at least you, my friends’. This was an image designed to elicit compassion, prayer, and good deeds from those who saw it.

References

Voorhelm Schneevoogt, C. G. 1873. Catalogue des estampes gravées d'après P. P. Rubens (Haarlem: Les héritiers Loosjes)