Archives: Esculturas

In October 1982, fifteen years after the catastrophic flooding of Valencia due to the overflowing waters of the Turia River in 1957, a monument by the sculptor Ramón de Soto Arándiga was inaugurated by the mayor of Valencia, Ricard Pérez Casado on 17 October 1982.

The monument with very schematic lines in two as rectilinear bodies, cubist, 16 meters high, almost vertical, wants to glorify those who then and in other floods died.

The material is artificial stone for formwork, and the work was done in a very short time.

It is located on the esplanade of the old Aragon Station, surrounded by a small pond and a perennial flame of remembrance and affection.

La Dama Ibérica is the work of the artist Manolo Valdés in 2007.

The installation proposal takes into account water as a support place, which is materialized with the arrangement of a fountain or glass with two levels of water and a central prismatic base where the sculpture that is the origin of the fountain itself is erected, considering the flow of water as a successive overflow between these elements, as a liquid carpet. The rest of the base is presented as a plant plan or green tapestry.

In the existing garden on the site adjacent to the temple of San Agustín -and Santa Catalina (martyr) – and formed by its left side wall, the parish building at the back and the streets of Mare de Déu de Gràcia and Guillem de Castro, was installed, on the initiative of the Official College of Teachers of Drawing of Valencia, a small and artistic monument -inaugurated on July 14, 1969- to the quatrecentista painter Marçal de Sax, one of the figures of Valencian pictorial art called “primitive”, or better late Gothic. The probable Nordic -Saxon- origin explains the strong expressive linearism of many of his figures, compatible thanks to his art and the contact of the Valencian masters and the Italian influence, together with a very remarkable formal beauty.

He is the author, documented, of the table of “the Incredulity of St. Thomas” of the Cathedral of Valencia and, by well-founded attribution, of the great altarpiece of the Hundred of the Feather (company of crossbowmen of escort of the Royal flag of Valencia) dedicated to Saint George, with scenes of his life and martyrdom and central panels of the Battle of Puig, of St. George with the Liberation of the Princess and the Virgin enthroned among angels, an altarpiece in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The painter who also founded a school of painting, in Valencia that of “Mestre Marçal” was born in 1410 and died in Valencia, in great penury, barely helped in the most necessary. It is portrayed, in free version, in bronze, by the Valencian sculptor, of Villar de l’Arquebisbe, Rafael Pérez Contel, on a pedestal of square section and with the inscription that reads “Valencia to the Master Marçal of Sax. Homage of the Official College of Teachers of Drawing and Excm. City Council, MCMLXVIII”.

It is installed in the gardens of Guillem de Castro street located in front of the Cervantes National School, and between the rest of the wall, the Torres de Quart, the flank with the buttresses of Santa Úrsula and other buildings. Its author was Mariano Benlliure and represents at the base great books of Chivalry on which stands the figure of Don Quixote, showing the bust of Cervantes held in his hands.

Today it is surrounded by a laundry room with fountains, which animate the once lonely pedestal. The sketch of the monument, in plaster, was exposed during the ceremony of laying the cornerstone, which took place on Sunday, May 7, 1905, the year in which the third centenary of the appearance of “the ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha” was commemorated in several Spanish cities. A year later the definitive work in bronze was inaugurated, being installed in the Plaza del Picadero -after the Painter Pinazo- next to Calle de Colón, until years later, it would be placed in its first place of destination opposite the aforementioned College.

Simple modernist work, from 1904, similar to another school or school group, also modernist, that of “Luis Vives” on Calle Cuenca.

With the same history as that of the monument to San Vicente Mártir, that of San Vicente Ferrer, in the Plaza de Tetuán -before Santo Domingo- and in front of the old convent of that name, current headquarters of the Captaincy General of the III Military Region, takes advantage of the strong sculpture of the Thaumaturgo created for the door of San Vicente (martyr) placed at the end of the eighteenth century (by agreement of the council of August 17, 1677), for the part that looked outside the city walls, being the object of veneration and attributing special protection in times of pest and other citizen calamities. When the door was demolished, it went to the municipal warehouses and then to the courtyard of the Museum and School of Fine Arts in El Carmen, until on April 26 (the Saint’s Day) of 1960 the monument was solemnly inaugurated, after the restoration and reintegration of the lost or deteriorated parts, by the sculptor Ernesto López, of the figure attributed to Ignasi Vergara, without great security. At his feet, he has the mitre which he renounced out of humility, and a child who holds the Bible to him, the basis of his preachings; In attitude he was efficated.

The location could not be more suitable, since to the spacious beauty of the square, joins the immediacy of who was his Dominican convent, and so many memories he keeps of him, and his own birthplace, a few meters away, in the street of the Mar corner to that of the Pouet de San Vicente. With this monument, the erection is due, like that of others, to Mayor Rincón de Arellano, Valencia pays a debt, perhaps unpayable, with the most illustrious of his children. Thus, on the pedestal an inscription reads: “Valencia grateful for the protection given to the city by Saint Vincent Ferrer in year MDCLXXVII”.

In Plaza del Carmen, between the parish church of Santíssima Creu, formerly El Carmen, and the Palace of Pineda, since 1960 stands the sculpture that, by the hand of the painter and sculptor Marià García Més, first pensioned in Fine Arts by the Provincial Council of Valencia, effigated the distinguished Valencian painter Vicente Juan Macip, known as Joan de Joanes (Font de la Figuera, 1523- ?, although it is well thought he was born in the city of Valencia, + in Bocairent, 1579) central figure of Valencian painting and personifier of the Renaissance in it, after the Manchego Yáñez and Llanos and his own father and teacher Vicente Juan Macip.

The figure was modelled in Rome by García Més during his pension and remained for a long time in non-definitive matter in the same Museum of Fine Arts, in its installation in the old Carmen, until, on the initiative of his live shows, Manuel González Martí, it was poured into stone and installed provisionally on the land that the new installation of the Museum -San Pio V-, it has adjacent to the Nurseries.

This saved the work whose original died in the flood of 1957 and, shortly afterwards, on the initiative of Mayor Rincón de Arellano, who arranged so many other sculptures as street ornaments of Valencia, it was installed in Plaza del Carmen. The work, in its helical rhythm, somewhat contradicts the serenity of the painter he efficated, although he translates his Renaissance and creative restlessness.

Previously, in the same square a cast iron bust had been installed, on a pedestal, representing the painter, with a fountain in its surroundings.

Paradoxically, Benlliure, who created so many important monuments everywhere, some in Valencia, many in Madrid, and all over the world, lacked one dedicated to his city, Valencia. Taking advantage of the conversion into a landscaped area of the site of the Gothic Palace of the Barons of Alaquàs, adjacent to the parish church of Santa Creu – formerly the Carme Church and located between it, the Parish House, Pare d’Orfes Street and the part of Roteros Street at its junction with Plaça del Carme – a monumental fountain measuring 2.36 by 2.47 m was erected.

On the obverse, facing most of the square garden, the “Fountain of the Children” of the master is reproduced in bronze, the original in plaster is exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia and from which the emptying of this monument was obtained – with versions equivalent to the residence of the Marchioness of Pelayo, in Solares (Santander) in La Alameda de Osuna (Madrid); in Cádiz -this one in ceramics-, and in the garden of the sculptor’s house in Madrid, disappeared, having been completed on the other side, or reverse, which looks at the Parish House, through a brief space in the garden, with a casting in bronze of the relief altarpiece by Mariano Benlliure made by Joaquín Sorolla for the signage of the Plaza de Marià Benlliure (before the Ball).

The original keeps the neighboring School (Faculty of Fine Arts today) of Fine Arts – and from which the foundry was removed – which provided the City Council for the destination it has received, in this short, simple and endearing monument-fountain.

The replacement of Mariano Benlliure by Sorolla was simultaneous and correlative to that of Sorolla by Mariano Benlliure, both on the joyous occasion that, for having won both the highest international awards, they received the double tribute of the city where they were born, dedicating street and square that bear their names, carved on these plaques, with the respective portraits in mid-relief in profile.

The fountain-monument was inaugurated at the July 1962 fair, with the solemnity given by the presence of the town hall and representations of artistic, cultural and Valencian entities.

In the square before the parish church of Santa Mònica and the adjoining Asylum, since 9 January 1974, a monument has been erected to Saint Teresa Jornet, founder of the order of Little Sisters of Forsaken Elderly, who runs the nearby charitable establishment. It is the work of the sculptor Manuel Silvestre Montesinos (“Silvestre de Edeta”) professor emeritus of Carving at the School of Fine Arts, today Faculty, a monument that consists of a group in marble representing the Saint, between an elderly woman and an old man whom she attends.

On the pedestal in front is the inscription with “Saint Teresa Jornet i Ibars, founder of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Forsaken Elderly, in its first centenary. 1873-1973”. And the signature “Silvestre de Edeta”.
Vice versa: “Tribute of the elderly with the sponsorship of Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Valencia and the collaboration of the Most Excellent City Council”.

In addition to the monument erected in the center of the cloister courtyard of the Literary University, the work of Josep Aixa, included in its monumental review, and those raised -the same- in the courtyard of the Lluís Vives Institute (Old College of Sant Pau), and in front of the Municipal Library of the Plaza de Mainz, works by Alfonso Pérez Plaza.

There is another monument in the city to the great Valencian philosopher and humanist, Joan Lluís Vives, bronze and petri homage, perhaps too modest, consisting of a bronze bust placed on a rectangular section pedestal, sculpture due to the artist, also son of the city, Ramon Mateu Montesinos, professor and academic, laureate with first Medal, who created this work, inaugurated by the Minister of Information and Tourism Manuel Fraga, on October 25, 1966, in the Plaza de los Pinazo, before the Pintor Pinazo, and before the Picadero, tangent to Calle de Colón, next to a landscape garden that centers this square; being noteworthy that another similar monument was placed in the Belgian city of Bruges, where Vives passed in 1512 and one of those that, like Valencia, Paris and Oxford, was the scene of the teachings and studies of Vives, although we must say of Ferrer Olmos, of Valencia “presents in case greater communicability and better disposition than that of Bruges, Placed, by the way, in a very careful place.” In Bruges he met his wife Margarita Valldaura and died there on May 6, 1540, at the age of 48. He was born in Valencia on 7 March of the annus mirabilis of 1492. On the pedestal of the Plaza de los Pinazo, it reads “Valencia to Joan Lluís Vives MCMLXVI”.

From the same sculptor Ramon Mateu, Honorary Academician of San Carlos, who was, there are other important works in Valencia such as the Mare de Déu del Carme, in the Plaza del Portal Nou; the Heart of Jesus, on the staircase of the Town Hall and the Crucified Christ presiding over the repristinate Gothic church of Saint Catherine the Martyr. De Vives, also, monuments in Madrid (National Library) and Barcelona (hall of the University), by other authors.

 

By Mariano Benlliure in 1908. It was first located in the old Plaza de San Francisco, but later moved to Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo where it remains today.

Its composition is very simple: a high stone pedestal supports the bronze statue of Don José Campo Pérez dressed in a levitate with an astracan neck and welcoming a girl, in clear allusion to the Asylum for Girls that he himself created in Valencia.

At his feet and surrounding the axis formed by the pedestal four symbolic figures: Charity, the Navy, Gas and the Railway, alluding to the four fundamental companies in which the Valencian banker used his effort. Although the ensemble is very monumental and perhaps recalls the scheme of the Fallas compositions, the work is carefully executed, particularly in the three knots alluding to navigation, gas and railway, works possibly executed in Rome, which clearly define the style of Benlliure’s early period. One of these figures – navigation – was presented by Benlliure at the International Exposition in Munich, where he won first prize. This statue also won first medal at the National Exhibition of Madrid in 1890.

In the Archbishop’s Square, called from 1923 to 1939 “Cardinal Benlloch’s”, in a small garden space, between the Archbishop’s Palace, by the architect Traver, and the Berbedel Palace -formerly Camp- there are two pieces to consider.

Closer to the Berbedel Palace in a rectangular laundry room, bottom of green and white tiles, with border and zigzag of equal tones, a yellowish stone font of Romanesque tradition, with sixteen arches or shackles in rough relief, all soaked by the water of the fountain balanced with its drain (for the moment disappeared).

Closer to the Prelacial Palace is the monument to the aforementioned Archbishop Marcelino Olaechea Loizaga (Archbishop of Valencia between 1946 and 1972). Consisting of a high prismatic pedestal of square section on one plint and overmounted by another, under the statue, all of the same section and above this the figure, the work of Salvador Octavio Vicente Cortina, representing the Prelate standing, and of greater size, perhaps half more than the natural one, with slave and butter intervened, which allows him to raise his right arm in an attitude, very much his own, between greeting and blessing; with solideus, and, on the bronze of the figure, a delicate sgraffito or barely perceptible design.

At the head of the pedestal, facing the Archbishopric, is the inscription “Valencia to his archbishop Marcelino MCMLXXVII”.

The sculptural technique is firm and whole, without realistic concessions or the minimum to evoke a certain semblance of gesture rather than face.

In the square of the same name, on the initiative of the corresponding falla, since March 10, 1974, a small monument surrounded by a landscaped space and with fountains and laundry, dedicated to this son of Massamagrell who got the episcopal see of Segorbe, after that of Solsona, apart from other missionary, cultural and charitable activities and founder of the Religious Order of the Capuchin tertiaries. The bust, donated by the family, is the work of the sculptor José Pérez Pérez, first national medal in 1950, placed on a pedestal of square section, solemnly inaugurating on the date predicted in 1974 and flaunting, on the pedestal, “Valencia to the illustrious pedagogue Bisbe Amigó. 1854-1934”, being the two dates, one that of his birth and the other his death in Godella.

The small monument animates the environment, ennobled by the not scarce vegetation. There are the streets of Bon Ordre and Cuenca, Historiador Diago, Sant Josep de Calasanç and Sant Francesc de Borja, a quality that is increased by the large double-chamfered building of the branch of the Caja de Ahorros de Valencia, a unique work, characteristic of the academic architect Don Antonio Gómez-Davó, of materials of the best condition and flag trace, with casilicis as a finish and wrought iron on doors and balconies, constituting an entire enclave that softens the aridity of this urban fabric, in danger, because it is not ancient or modern, of falling into vulgarity.

This aestheticization of the area is enhanced by the marble sculpture of professor and academic “Victor Hino” (Victoriano Gómez López, + 1979), a female nude not entirely after the block, which contributes to give it interest.