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“Águeda”, terracotta, wood and metals. The title of this work from 2004 responds to the name of a Sicilian virgin born in Catania, at the foot of Etna. Louis Réau describes his legend according to which the prefect Quintiano wanted to submit her to his wishes and persuade her to offer sacrifices to the gods. Failing to do so, he led her to the brothel of the courtesan Aphrodisias in order to subject her to a ritual rape that, miraculously, did not affect her virginity. Later, the prefect threatened her with spanking, tied her to a column and made her breasts (pectoris papilla tollitur) tore off with tongs. Legend has it that Saint Peter appeared to her in the dungeon and cured her. His death occurred in the year 251. The bust of this work modeled in fired clay is assembled to a wooden bell-shaped structure by means of a thumb screw. This conical shape of wood is known from studies of the Spanish polychrome sculpture of dressing as "candelero" or "rueca". These mechanisms hidden from the eyes of the faithful are emphasized in this piece as a sculptural category. Since 2005 there is a bronze reproduction in the Sculpture Museum of Leganés, Madrid (Cf. catalogue SENSUALIDAD ROTA, Magda Lázaro Art Gallery, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 2011).


INVITATION TO THE SACRED ATTIC
                                                             by Ferdinand Arnold.

"These ladies, what is it that they are trying to tell us? They don’t utter a word. Neither have they any need. Their presence, like an army, that accompanied to glory a very powerful monarch, now destitute, or even dead, would suffice. Their final gestures, the dismembered bodies in which they have solidified, the nakedness, that has even lost all flesh, today. Our task is, of course, that of finding out from what reality they stem, what is it that they are, what their final aim is. To talk on their behalf, in their stead; to offer them a voice, a voice that may be the first articulation of a dialogue. For one thing is certain: they absorb a wholly closed past. Vestiges, remainders of a declining world that still seems to thrill in the nostalgia of its ancient splendour, through that insistence, at times histrionic, at others deeply tragic, on its highest values, yet simultaneously it leaps ahead, with its methodical, almost excessive cruelty, and sharpens its iconoclastic criti-cism. Extremely tensed bow, that from the liveliest imagery, where penitents’ memories hang, to the exhaustion, through amputation and wear, of begone exultant holiness, shoots, prompted perhaps by a complex feeling, its analytical arrow, which falls, once it has followed the celestial path to humankind, in the centre of the circus and of all our vanities”. 

(Text for exhibition “O vos Omnes…”. Círculo de Bellas Artes, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, november - december 1989).
Exposición Favores, prodigios y milagros en el espacio cultural CajaCanarias de La Palma. 2 de noviembre de 2020 al 6 de enero 2021.
Exposición Favores, prodigios y milagros en el espacio cultural CajaCanarias de La Palma. 2 de noviembre de 2020 al 6 de enero 2021.
“Águeda”, terracotta, wood and metals. The title of this work from 2004 responds to the name of a Sicilian virgin born in Catania, at the foot of Etna. Louis Réau describes his legend according to which the prefect Quintiano wanted to submit her to his wishes and persuade her to offer sacrifices to the gods. Failing to do so, he led her to the brothel of the courtesan Aphrodisias in order to subject her to a ritual rape that, miraculously, did not affect her virginity. Later, the prefect threatened her with spanking, tied her to a column and made her breasts (pectoris papilla tollitur) tore off with tongs. Legend has it that Saint Peter appeared to her in the dungeon and cured her. His death occurred in the year 251. The bust of this work modeled in fired clay is assembled to a wooden bell-shaped structure by means of a thumb screw. This conical shape of wood is known from studies of the Spanish polychrome sculpture of dressing as "candelero" or "rueca". These mechanisms hidden from the eyes of the faithful are emphasized in this piece as a sculptural category. Since 2005 there is a bronze reproduction in the Sculpture Museum of Leganés, Madrid (Cf. catalogue SENSUALIDAD ROTA, Magda Lázaro Art Gallery, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 2011).


INVITATION TO THE SACRED ATTIC
                                                             by Ferdinand Arnold.

"These ladies, what is it that they are trying to tell us? They don’t utter a word. Neither have they any need. Their presence, like an army, that accompanied to glory a very powerful monarch, now destitute, or even dead, would suffice. Their final gestures, the dismembered bodies in which they have solidified, the nakedness, that has even lost all flesh, today. Our task is, of course, that of finding out from what reality they stem, what is it that they are, what their final aim is. To talk on their behalf, in their stead; to offer them a voice, a voice that may be the first articulation of a dialogue. For one thing is certain: they absorb a wholly closed past. Vestiges, remainders of a declining world that still seems to thrill in the nostalgia of its ancient splendour, through that insistence, at times histrionic, at others deeply tragic, on its highest values, yet simultaneously it leaps ahead, with its methodical, almost excessive cruelty, and sharpens its iconoclastic criti-cism. Extremely tensed bow, that from the liveliest imagery, where penitents’ memories hang, to the exhaustion, through amputation and wear, of begone exultant holiness, shoots, prompted perhaps by a complex feeling, its analytical arrow, which falls, once it has followed the celestial path to humankind, in the centre of the circus and of all our vanities”. 

(Text for exhibition “O vos Omnes…”. Círculo de Bellas Artes, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, november - december 1989).
“Águeda”, terracotta, wood and metals. The title of this work from 2004 responds to the name of a Sicilian virgin born in Catania, at the foot of Etna. Louis Réau describes his legend according to which the prefect Quintiano wanted to submit her to his wishes and persuade her to offer sacrifices to the gods. Failing to do so, he led her to the brothel of the courtesan Aphrodisias in order to subject her to a ritual rape that, miraculously, did not affect her virginity. Later, the prefect threatened her with spanking, tied her to a column and made her breasts (pectoris papilla tollitur) tore off with tongs. Legend has it that Saint Peter appeared to her in the dungeon and cured her. His death occurred in the year 251. The bust of this work modeled in fired clay is assembled to a wooden bell-shaped structure by means of a thumb screw. This conical shape of wood is known from studies of the Spanish polychrome sculpture of dressing as "candelero" or "rueca". These mechanisms hidden from the eyes of the faithful are emphasized in this piece as a sculptural category. Since 2005 there is a bronze reproduction in the Sculpture Museum of Leganés, Madrid (Cf. catalogue SENSUALIDAD ROTA, Magda Lázaro Art Gallery, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 2011).


INVITATION TO THE SACRED ATTIC
                                                             by Ferdinand Arnold.

"These ladies, what is it that they are trying to tell us? They don’t utter a word. Neither have they any need. Their presence, like an army, that accompanied to glory a very powerful monarch, now destitute, or even dead, would suffice. Their final gestures, the dismembered bodies in which they have solidified, the nakedness, that has even lost all flesh, today. Our task is, of course, that of finding out from what reality they stem, what is it that they are, what their final aim is. To talk on their behalf, in their stead; to offer them a voice, a voice that may be the first articulation of a dialogue. For one thing is certain: they absorb a wholly closed past. Vestiges, remainders of a declining world that still seems to thrill in the nostalgia of its ancient splendour, through that insistence, at times histrionic, at others deeply tragic, on its highest values, yet simultaneously it leaps ahead, with its methodical, almost excessive cruelty, and sharpens its iconoclastic criti-cism. Extremely tensed bow, that from the liveliest imagery, where penitents’ memories hang, to the exhaustion, through amputation and wear, of begone exultant holiness, shoots, prompted perhaps by a complex feeling, its analytical arrow, which falls, once it has followed the celestial path to humankind, in the centre of the circus and of all our vanities”. 

(Text for exhibition “O vos Omnes…”. Círculo de Bellas Artes, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, november - december 1989).
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"Águeda" Sculpture

Miguel Ángel Martín Sánchez

Spain

Sculpture, Ceramic on Ceramic

Size: 29.1 W x 68.1 H x 19.7 D in

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About The Artwork

“Águeda”, terracotta, wood and metals. The title of this work from 2004 responds to the name of a Sicilian virgin born in Catania, at the foot of Etna. Louis Réau describes his legend according to which the prefect Quintiano wanted to submit her to his wishes and persuade her to offer sacrifices to the gods. Failing to do so, he led her to the brothel of the courtesan Aphrodisias in order to subject her to a ritual rape that, miraculously, did not affect her virginity. Later, the prefect threatened her with spanking, tied her to a column and made her breasts (pectoris papilla tollitur) tore off with tongs. Legend has it that Saint Peter appeared to her in the dungeon and cured her. His death occurred in the year 251. The bust of this work modeled in fired clay is assembled to a wooden bell-shaped structure by means of a thumb screw. This conical shape of wood is known from studies of the Spanish polychrome sculpture of dressing as "candelero" or "rueca". These mechanisms hidden from the eyes of the faithful are emphasized in this piece as a sculptural category. Since 2005 there is a bronze reproduction in the Sculpture Museum of Leganés, Madrid (Cf. catalogue SENSUALIDAD ROTA, Magda Lázaro Art Gallery, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 2011).

Details & Dimensions

Sculpture:Ceramic on Ceramic

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:29.1 W x 68.1 H x 19.7 D in

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Contemporary Spanish sculptor, born on the Canarian Island La Palma (1959). As a sculptor he focuses on a critical review of Spanish sacred art. After exhibiting in Canarian institutions such as Círculo de Bellas Artes ("O vos omnes qvi transitis per viam", 1989), CajaCanarias ("Divino Maniquí", 1991), Municipal Museum of Santa Cruz de Tenerife ("Kyrie Eleison") and CICCA de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria ("El fracaso de Adán” [The Failure of Adam], 2002), his interest in locating his sculptures in places that might suggest an enriching dialogue from the iconographic point of view leads him to exhibit them in places as diverse as the Collection Museum of reproductions of ancient art at the Free University of Berlin, where his exhibition "Timete Deum" confronts the Greek models of Christian iconography; at the Siegburg Municipal Museum, specializing in medieval sacred art, his exhibition "Kyrie Eleison" (2003) is exhibited at the foot of Mount St. Michael, and at the Lübeck Cathedral, a former Catholic cathedral, now Protestant, the exhibition "Skulpturen im Dom”, composed of sculptures of counter-reformist roots, acquires special significance. Finally there is “EENS” (2005) in the Casa de las Conchas in Salamanca (in front of the Clergy), which is part of the commemoration of the bicentennial of its Plaza Mayor. He is interested in the iconography of Christian art, its roots in the East and the West, its sociocultural influence, as well as its political instrumentalization in the conquest and colonization of the Canary Islands. He dedicated his thesis, articles and his doctoral thesis to this. He studied outstanding images of the island of La Palma, from which he is a native, which later led him to study foreign sculptors such as Lorenzo Mercadante from Brittany, with a work attributed to La Palma. He has published two books: "Miguel, el Arcángel de Dios en Canarias: Aspectos socio-culturales y artísticos" [Miguel, the Archangel of God in the Canary Islands: Socio-cultural and artistic aspects]. Foreword by Víctor Nieto Alcaide. Ed. Aula de Cultura del Excmo. Cabildo Insular de Tenerife, Scientific Publications, in the colección Arte e Historia [Art and History collection], nº 19, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1991. "El imaginero Lorenzo Mercadante. Estudio de la obra y claves de su huella en la Virgen de las Nieves de la isla canaria de La Palma" [Imagineer Lorenzo Mercadante.

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