Interreligious narratives and contra‐religious aesthetics in the material culture of Navarra, Northern Spain

The region of Navarra provides ample opportunities to explore interreligious aesthetics. Made internationally famous by Ernest Hemmingway’s Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, and more recently, as one of the most picturesque stages of the popular Camino de Santiago walking pilgrimage, Navarra is located between the French and Spanish provinces of the Basque Country, La Rioja and Aragon. Born during the Reconquista, Navarra was an independent kingdom up to 1512 when it was incorporated into the crown of Castile. Through the modern period it struggled to maintain its own cultural, religious and legal identity within the Spanish Monarchy. In this article we examine the representation and contestation of religions in the artistic and material culture of this province. We do this in order to consider how religious narratives may be expressed and contested by invoking the senses. We focus on examples of Navarran material culture that dispute or support historical narratives relevant to the ongoing identity politics of the regional government, nationalist groups, religious communities and the tourism industry. By considering these examples we make a wider contribution to the theory of interreligious aesthetics, arguing that religious difference is not only symbolically represented in architecture, images, art, and ritual, but can also be its raison d'être.