Resumen de El paisaje inexistente

Pere Joan Quetglas Nicolau, Ana Gómez Rabal

• español

  El color es uno de los elementos que mejor definen los paisajes, aunque no puede ser analizado en abstracto, sino asociado a un elemento. Sobre la base de este principio, el presente trabajo tiene por objetivo identificar y definir los adjetivos de color que se emplean con los elementos paisajísticos en los documentos latinos medievales escritos en Cataluña entre los s. IX y XII e integrados en la base de datos CODOLCAT. Concretamente se ha limitado la investigación a los elementos del paisaje terrestre y se ha establecido una lista de 25 de sus designaciones que aparecen en ellos asociadas a un adjetivo de color: balteus, cher, collum, coma, costa, cotalus, gurgus, lapis, mons, pascua, petra, pinna, podium, pratum, ripa, roca, rupis, saxum, serra, silva, spelunca, spina, terra, terrarium y vallis. En diversas tablas se muestran los colores con los que establece relación cada uno de esos sustantivos, que pueden ser los cuatro básicos: blanco, negro, rojo y verde, u otros más difíciles de establecer: amarillo, marrón, gris, rosa y azul. Las conclusiones obtenidas son, en parte, sorprendentes, pues revelan una paradoja, especialmente desde un punto de vista moderno: a pesar de que el color es un elemento muy representativo del paisaje, su manifestación en esos textos es muy limitada. La mayor parte de las veces el color no es considerado por sí mismo, sino en tanto en cuanto proporciona un elemento distintivo para referentes iguales, y, en consecuencia, hay poco interés por conseguir la precisión en lo que respecta a la pura caracterización del color.

• English

  Colour is one of the elements that most genuinely defines a landscape. However, colour cannot be taken by itself, in the abstract; it always appears in association with an element. On the basis of this principle, this paper focuses on defining and capturing the adjectives of colour referring to the landscape elements that appear in Latin Medieval documents from Catalonia written between the ninth and the twelfth centuries and gathered by the database CODOLCAT (Corpus Documenta/e Latinum Cataloniae). To avoid an excessive dispersion of the field of application, our study centres on the natural terrestrial landscape forms. In this sense, we have excluded those elements related to water (seas, rivers, lakes, etc.) and those not strictly natural because of the intervention of mankind. After establishing this criterion, we have defined the elements that constitute the natural landscape, divided into generic constituent elements (without characterization, such as mons, petra, etc.) and specific constituent elements (characterized by form, such as cingulus, or purpose, such as guard). We have restricted the list to those elements that appear associated with an adjective of colour, and the result is a catalogue of twenty-five terms (wich their Latin and Romance variants): balteus, cher, collum, coma, costa, cotalus, gurgus, lapis, mons, pascua, petra, pinna, podium, pratum, ripa, roca, rupis, saxum, serra, silva, spelunca, spina, terra, terrarium and vallis. These forms have been crossed with the possible denominations of the different colours, including both the genuinely Latin terms and the words usual in Catalan, the Romance language of reference in our case. In order to facilitate the processing of the data, the results of this cross-linking have been grouped into a series of tables established from what we generally consider basic colours: white, black, red, green; these have been complemented with those colours more difficult to establish: yellow, brown, grey, pink and blue. In this regard, we should point out that they are not all the possible colours, but only the ones that appear in our documentation and refer to elements of the landscape. A sample of the registered examples is given for each case. The conclusions we have reached are somewhat surprising, since they reveal a paradox (especially if we consider it from a modern point of view): despite the fact that colour is a representative element of the landscape; its manifestation is very limited. Most of the time, colour is not considered by itself, but in the sense that it provides a distinguishing element between equal referents and, therefore, with scarce desire for precision as far as the characterization of the colour itself is concerned.