La arquitectura popular y sus autores: Estética y dialéctica en la cantería de Nuez de Aliste (Zamora)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to help dismiss one of the most widely-held beliefs about traditional culture: its supposedly anonymous and non-written character. By analyzing the work of stonemasons in a village of the province of Zamora, Spain, the author brings to the surface the dialectic that obtains between author and product within traditional culture. He explores the iconographic and textual expressions of a number of works of stonemasonry. Textual expressions are particularly rich in the forms adopted: dates, initials, mottos. Although the instances are local, the author reveals the larger extension of this type of writing, which carries strong identity and property overtones.