Portal de Totana
www.portaldetotana.com
My coexistence with Totana is and has been from the first creative moment, since it is a city full of art, artistic sensitivity and love of letters.
That is why I live in the environment that I like, simple and friendly, which allows me to create life with the use of the written word.
Undoubtedly because of that love of art in this small city there is an authentic open-air museum of the work of a great Murcian sculptor, as well as other works by two of his daughters and one by his father.
When I came, a friend took me to La Santa, a place that I already knew and when I saw the Heart of Jesus I told him that it looked like one of the many monuments that made the great sculptor Nicol�s Mart�nez Ram�n, son of another great named Anastasio Mart�nez Hern�ndez.
Actually, I had already seen that on other occasions, but the discovery was when he showed me the Stations of the Cross.
I did not imagine that in a small place there would be a work of that quality and category, fourteen images corresponding to the seasons of devotion, full of sweetness and sensitivity.
Modern, soft and delicate lines that caress the eye of the beholder.
But when I came before that Crucified Christ without a cross, I was ecstatic.
A Christ who is crucified in space, on the infinite blue of the sky, an unprecedented conception for me that left me totally stunned.
Since then, there have been several times that I have gone for a walk along that path and contemplated the unforgettable images.
I found out about his authorship and remembered, after many years outside Murcia, that he knew Anastasio Mart�nez Valc�rcel, whose father was a cousin of a friend of mine, although he was an acquaintance superficial.
I studied some of his work and the Stations of the Cross continued to fascinate me for its modernity, realism of soft forms and pathos at the same time.
In addition to this work, I was surprised by the author's youth, since he had not yet reached his thirties and had already perfectly defined his sculptural style and the techniques to use.
With the passage of time I have come to know and love Totana more, while discovering new urban sculptures by this sculptor, so easy to distinguish due to their defined style as if they were signed with huge letters.
The great sculptors are easily recognizable like those of any great artist, since they all bear the imprint of the author, as it is easy for us to recognize a Greco, a Goya or a Salzillo.
As I have been walking through the streets and squares of Totana I have been seeing sculptures with their own stamp and with a material that is characteristic of this sculptor of which I speak, the so-called "artificial stone".
This technique allows the sculptor to work the statue with a so-called soft material to make a mold from which to take a negative in rubber or plaster, which is filled with white concrete.
The difficulty for the artist is the same, however this system allows a reduction in costs that makes the works of this great author more affordable to the municipalities.
Anyone who contemplates the sculpture of the water rotunda, that of La Turra with the shield, that of the potter, the Romer�a de San Roque and many others, will easily see that the authorship is the same, the Soft and original lines, the singular conception of this artist make them easily recognizable.
You show us very clearly the deep knowledge of art and its techniques, something logical in someone with an academic curriculum like yours.
Probably what first caught my attention was the decoration of the door of the parish rooms of the Three Ave Mar�as parish, as well as some sweet and plump-looking angels that clearly denoted their author.
In successive visits I have seen that in this church there is religious imagery by this artist, oil painting, altarpieces and even stained glass windows made by her daughter Blanca and paintings by her other daughter Mar�a Luisa.
Subsequently, and for almost thirty years, I have been seeing new additions to the beautification of the urban area by the same sculptor.
I have counted the ones I know by heart, which I suppose are not all, and they come out almost seventy, which gives an idea of ??the contribution of this unique artist to the beauty of the city, along with the fans of the city by this sculptor.
Anastasio Mart�nez Valc�rcel was born in the city of Murcia in July 1941, in the house where the father's workshop was installed, which conditioned his childhood and undoubtedly his inclination for art, since masters many artistic disciplines.
He studied at the Marist Brothers school and collaborated as an apprentice since he was a child in the workshop founded by his grandfather Anastasio Mart�nez Hern�ndez and directed by his father Nicol�s Mart�nez Ram�n .
Sculptors such as Jos� Planes, Clemente Cantos, Lozano Roca, Nicol�s Mart�nez Ram�n and many others were trained in this workshop under the direction of his grandfather, mastering all the decorative arts.
Disciplined since childhood in the value of effort, work and study, he left school at the age of fourteen, completing his practical training with training in the disciplines of drawing and modeling in the Real Sociedad Econ�mica de Amigos del Pa�s, having as teachers his own father and Enrique S�nchez Alberola, of whom the artist has never forgotten his teachings.
Working in the father's workshop, he attended night classes at the School of Arts and Artistic Trades in the Plaza de Santo Domingo, under the direction of Jos� S�iquer and having as teachers Mariano Ballester, Francisco Val and Gonz�lez Moreno.
In 1961 he entered the San Carlos Superior School of Fine Arts in Valencia, having as teachers Adolfo Ferrer, Gabriel Esteve, Francisco Lozano, Luis Bolinches and Octavio Vicent, also attending the Valencian Circle of Fine Arts .
With a grant from the Murcia Provincial Council, he completed the last courses of the degree and the teaching staff at the San Fernando Superior School of Fine Arts, in the capital of Spain, ending in 1966.
In 1967 he made a study trip to Spain, France and Italy, visiting the best museums and learning from the works of the great European masters, which was defining his way of understanding sculpture, with an expressionist and liberalizing concept.
of the forms.
His artistic production is estimated at over 1,500 works from different disciplines, in which sculpture prevails with a very personal concept, distributed throughout the Hispanic geography and abroad.
I highly doubt that there is a town or city in the world that contains in itself as much work by a single author as happens in Totana with Anastasio Mart�nez Valc�rcel, because in its streets and surroundings we can see an authentic museum at open air of the great sculptor.
Glory to Totana and the artist.
Meanwhile, Anastasio Mart�nez Valc�rcel is still a young man about to turn eighty years old, full of inspiration and creativity because he continues to work.
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Source: Juan Ruiz García / Foto: Totana.com
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