[Gocamino] more photos from Sevilla!

[David Hough on gocamino]

Courtesy of Rosina of course:

http://gocamino.oakapple.net/library/rosina/

Rosina adds:

The picture ... is that of the face of the image of "Jesus del Gran Poder" (Jesus of the Great power) in Seville.  The statue was carved on the fifteenth century and it is very much revered in Seville. When it is taken out before dawn of Good Friday to the Cathedral, the Nazarenes and the Penitents marching with it are more than three thousand (the king of Spain, and Prince Felipe are brothers of the Confraternity)   Because of its age, the statue is very delicate.  A few years ago there was  a great deal of consternation because the wood was darkening.  Painstaking examinations disclosed some minute wood larvae eating at it.  Scientist came from all over the world, including Japan and the U.S.A. to try to help, but it was a group of scientists from a small Catholic college in Scotland who were able to stop, and repair, the damage.
When the weather threatens rain the image does not come out. I, for one, am in perfect agreement that no chances should be taken with it, despite the fact that the members of its Confraternity, and the  neighboihood, prepare all year for the event.
The image has a lovely round church, with stunning modern frescoes of the Via Crucis around the low cupola. The image is kept low in the altar and one can walk around it; to standing  behind it, looking upwards to the face, has never failed to move me. 
I do not believe that anyone, paintor or sculptor, has ever been able to depict in  the face of Jesus his bearing the sadness and pain of our weaknesses and misdeeds as stunningly as this image does.. I've heard many people say that looking at that face they have been able to understood the essence of Christ.
 
Well, here are some more pictures: one showing the image, at 3:30 a.m. om Good Friday, about to enter the Cathedral..... in utter and stunned silence (No one can possibly understand the emotions that permeate the tens of thousands watching without beiung there);  another picture is a slight profile of the face, a third one is the front, as a special show of my affection for you all, a picture of the Macarena. The Macarena, by the way, was carved in the seventeenth century and it is the only one of the ancient images in Seville to have been carved by a woman artist.