Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country
Mexico City, Nov. 10th, 2005 (translated from Spanish)
When his friend Eduardo Chillida died, Dn. Juan commented that those kind of homages were excessive. As if when a world famous person passed away, the living rivaled in talking about his glories, as contesting to share part of his endeavors. For a Christian, in his opinion, posthumous glory should be irrelevant.
Had he been with us tonight he would have told us something similar, out of modesty: that he had only done his duty, so no fuss was needed to be made.
But Dr. Juan Plazaola SJ was too important and loved for all of us, gathered tonight to remember him, that being stingy with the memories and the expressions of gratitude and love would not make neither of us happy.
Every story starts with a temporal reference: it was Summer of 1998 when we met for first time. He had come to the UIA Mexico to lecture on Art History topics for the Continuing Education Department. Dra. Cristina Torales, then its Director, introduced us and instructed me, then her Art Coordinator, to take him under my care and cater for his needs, for he was our guest and an aged stomach cancer survivor. My mission: provide for his comfort, his food and transport while in Mexico.
Taking care of him was a short lived privilege, because he got unexpectedly ill and had to leave for an emergency operation that would be performed back in Spain. Before leaving I gave him a crash course on the use of the email, he named it “The Emilio” and soon became an true enthusiast of that way of communication between friends in this Global Village. Between July 1998 and April 2005 we would have sent each other more that a thousand "emilios", so many that last January he wrote: “You know that there are some people here who know you well? The Tech Support guys have asked me who is this "Margarita" who writes to you so much”. A big embrace from JUAN".
Our friendship was born and grew strong in those simple daily events. He would still return to Mexico every Summer until 2004. He gave continuous courses and lectures in Mexico City, Puebla and Monterrey. In my case, as in the Gospel story about the field workers who came last in the day and got the same salary of those who were the first in the morning, I received from him the same interest, wisdom, and generosity his first students got from him.
From the austere nature of his Basque character he considered me “too emotive and sensitive”, a "typical" example of Latin exuberance (that measured from Mexican standards, I’m afraid I´m still too self concious and proper). Father José Ferrer Benimeli SJ, who in his youth had suffered Plazaola as his strict-observance Provincial in Spain, considered that the only explanation of us being so good friends was that “I was not a Spaniard and he was not my Provincial”. Could be, but there were many things we shared: we celebrated our birthdays the same week, he was born on January 21st. and I the 29th. We shared the enthusiasm for modern abstract art and he became my teacher in the Jesuit sense, the one who gives the "modo y orden", the how and when, in opening my soul eyes to the mysteries of art appreciation, to contemporary Christian and Religious Art and enabling the tools to achieve the academic goal of its study. He considered the mastery on formal visual literacy analysis the main tool to base a sound research of a given art work.
Friendship, trust and love crept in the cracks of my admiration for his wisdom and his lack of egotism. To me he was Dn. Juan, as I would call respectfully an old uncle. When he visited me the last time in the UIA Art Department on the Summer of 2004 I was dismayed to see how old and frail he had become, and feared we would never meet again in flesh nor see each other with human eyes. He noticed I was getting sad and directly asked me:
-“Do you believe in the Resurrection?”
-“Yes, Father”
-“I do too”: was his answer.
End of the story. We parted in the faith that we were both standing in the loving care of God.
Plazaola´s interest for art had started in his youth, when in the novitiate he was asked to paint the screens for theatrical representations. He had a talent for painting, but he was allowed to study Literature, the only art study available for a priest, because visual arts, painting and sculpture, dealt directly with sensuality and encouraged the development of a bohemian character, considered spiritually dangerous for a consecrated life.
Yet he managed to do his Doctoral Thesis on a peculiar character of XIXth century France: Isidore Severin Justin, Baron de Taylor, writer, draughtsman and Beaux Arts Inspector for the government of Charles the Xth in the times of the monarchic restoration of the 1830’s in France. Baron Taylor was responsible of importing a lot of superb Spanish art pieces of the XVII Century “Golden Era”, as so of Egyptian art pieces for the Louvre Museum collections. His grave is one of the famous at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Dr. Bruno Foucart, a notable scholar on XIX century French Art, tutored Plazaola´s project and later would write the introduction for the book that sprung from that thesis.
From then on Plazaola will never wander away from the study of visual art. He was the author of an Aesthetics, as of several books about Christian Art and the study of different art appreciation subjects. For years he was the publisher of the Ars Sacra magazine and befriended most of the contemporary religious artists, such as Eduardo Chillida, Néstor Basterrechea and Cinto Casanovas SJ, a contemporary Jesuit sculptor.
One of his last works was the monumental recollection of Basque Art from the prehistoric to contemporary times. He was very fond of modern art specially when its forms were full of feeling and made the beholder to have a mystical experience. That happened a lot with the art works of William Congdon, Alfred Manessier and Néstor Basterrechea, this last one author of a very polemical depiction of Christ in Aranzazú Chapel in Basque country.
My favorite book by Dn. Juan´s is the story written with the pseudonym of Juan de Legazpi about the life and martyrdom of his brother, a young Brother of the Orden of St. John of God, devoted to the attention to hospitals for the extremely poor, during the Spanish Civil War. Is a brief literary jewel, showing the simple and solid life of a working class family on San Sebastian in the turn of the XXth century and how this quiet and dedicated boy took in a turn of fate the path to modern sainthood in the bloody and crazy times of the Spanish Civil War in the thirties. There is no hate towards his brother´s killers in this fraticide conflict, yet the anger and pain Dr. Plazaola experienced is sublimated in a deep description of the Resurrection of his slain brother in the literary way of a William Congdon picture, where the rich dabs of paint are the only way to communicate such a transcendental matter.
Dn. Juan encouraged and inspired my Art History studies and helped me with the choosing of the theme for the doctoral dissertation: the forgotten Jesuit artists who lived in the XIX and XXth centuries, after the re-founding of the Society of Jesus. A quote from one of his emails to me on the subject in July 2001: “If Jesuit artists are now little known it is not because they are inexistent but because those who control art markets do not share the spiritual values they defend and do not want them to be shown. Those powers who hold today cultural mainstream will never accept them because these artists will never bow as slaves to money and snobishness as the prize to recognizement”.
In 1999 he contacted me with Fr. Bruno SJ, the director of the legendary San Fedele Gallery in Milan. He forwarded me all the correspondence, photographs and material from those five Jesuits who started painting and showing publicly their work in that small art gallery, just after the II World War in an attempt to restore Europe´s spirit thru visual arts.
Dn. Juan wanted me to travel to San Sebastian, where he would make sure I will have all I might need to work on my doctorate, making a solid research on that subject. After two years I might as well decide to stay or return to Mexico, if I pleased. For personal reasons, I was not able to accept at that time such a generous offer. Yet I followed his advice and attempted what was possible: I started in 2001 my doctorate in Art History in The National and Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and my choice of thesis theme was the work of two Mexican Jesuit Artists of the XXth century. Later my tutors reduced it to only one: Fr. Gonzalo Carrasco SJ. We shared a lot about the subject and the possibilities of presenting the phenomenon of the Jesuit Artists as a theme for study. He was very interested in my progress. Last time we met in 2004 he said good bye with an urgent “Be quick. I want to see you soon a Doctor”.
Dn. Juan stays in my heart and memory as a man with a strong temperament, combining courage and sensibility. When I shared with him I was planning to get married again, he gave me his description of the ideal man for me: “A fervent Christian and a patient man”.
Once he shared with me that when he knew he had cancer, he got ready to die with no fear, for he was an old man and his life was lived in full, but God wanted him working still and meeting new students and survived the operations, yet with a severely weakened health. He survived, adapted and overcame his condition, keeping an astonishing rhythm of work to the last weeks of his life.
The photos presented in the Power Point were taken in the Summer of 1999, from a visit to Guadalajara. The one that opens this post was taken in the Governor´s Palace staircase, in front of the magnificent José Clemente Orozco Mural depicting Miguel Hidalgo, the Insurgent leader from 1810 Independence Revolt. Dn, Juan wanted to see the Orozco Murals of Tolsá Chapel in the Cabañas Hospice, now the Cabañas Cultural Center (CCC) and invited me to go along with him in this day trip. I enjoy taking care of those I love so I did my best from 6am to 10pm, when the last plane returned to Mexico City. This pic shows us pausing for rest in a street café before visiting the Tolsá Chapel. 
At lunchtime he shared with me his interesting and historical experiences as Provincial Father electing in Rome the Jesuit General Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach. I learned then how important is to take into account all the minute personal character traits when looking for anyone who will be a leader and a conductor of men.
Weeks later, back in Mexico City, I had the honor of introducing Dn. Juan to Fray Gabriel Chávez de la Mora OSB, the famous Benedictine Architect. I a fan of his art work from my early childhood in the sixties and later in my thirties a collector of his art work. We had met for first time some years before. The wooden plaque laying on the table in the next pic is actually in my living room and Fr. Gabriel remembered polishing himself the veneers of the delicate inlay representing St. Francis of Assisi surrounded by birds.
A meeting of that sort is not something that happens on daily basis: being the honor witness of the reunion of two of the most relevant personalities of religious contemporary art in Iberoamerica, who knew each other only through their written works, but never in person.
Out of respect for both of them I tried to be very discrete during the whole interview, recording 
all the event behind my camera. Dn. Juan started to feel there was too much shutterbug going on so told me to knock it off. I defended myself with a “Father, you will latter regret to have no memories of this moments”. He really loved the photos, he believed I had captured the spirit of the visit.
Fray Gabriel gave us a tour around all the monastery he built and decorated. Full of the serene and functional beauty that is the trademark of his architectural artworks. We visited the inner courtyards, the refectory, the living room, that also functions as chapterhouse, and his studio, where they 
exchanged presents and autographed books. Latter, while strolling in the cemetery outside of the church, while a monk helped a youngster go through the truths of Catechism for his First Communion, Dn. Juan admired the beauty of how Fray Gabriel materialized the idea of th
e large cross at the center of the hemicicle graves, pointing to the Polar Star, the immovable Star of the Northern Hemisphere. The life and death of the monks (should be of any Christian) was oriented to the unchanged and eternal. When I took this photo I thought that these two friends of mine were of the few people I knew for whom those words chiseled in that last threshold were living truths.
We finished our visit in the monastery´s church, chanting with the community of monks the Vespers, a beautiful hymn for the last canonical Hour before Completes, sung in Spanish since the II Vatican Council. In a confident and beautiful way the lyrics speak of the trust in the Lord’s light when the darkness comes down onto the World. The chant materialized in the ablazed stained glass window, filled with the last rays of the setting sun. Dn. Juan and I shared this aesthetic and transcendental experience joining in the song together from a bench in front of the altar.
In his 50th aniversary of Ordination he sent me a postcard depicting the Immaculate Virgin of Esteban Murillo. In the back was this classical sonnet he had written.
Si el cielo azul y el bosque enmudecieran
y olvidada su "Sexta Sinfonía"
el "sonido y la furia" me envolvieran…
Sufriría con paz tal agonía.
Esta sería sólo insufridera
Si no existieras Tú, Virgen María
(Free translation)
Were the blue sky and the woods got silent
Forgetting the “Sixth Symphony”
And the “sound and fury” surrounded me
I’ll suffer in peace such agony
Only be made unbearable
if You didn’t exist, Virgin Mary
His guarantee in life and death was the unbreakable certainty of a Marian devout.
I do miss not being able to share with him in flesh that I’m so close to be a Doctor in Art History... that as I post this blog I am already that Doctor in Art History. And that he had A LOT to do with it. But I must remember that the Resurrection means that the change in shape is not the same as extinction. Our friendship will never end because death has no power to separate those who are true friends.
My words this night would have got from him a dry humored remark “Now look how you ended up telling the whole story…..Vaya, que no es para tanto”.
"Ni modo", my beloved Dn. Juan, for “of the abundance of the Heart speaks the mouth” and LIFE, lived as you did, will never have a final period ....
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