Félix Granda
He spent many summers in Muros de Nalon with a group of painters that included Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida and Cecilio Pla y Gallardo.
The Archbishop-Bishop of Madrid-Alcalá, Jose Maria Cos y Macho, whom Granda had known when Cos was the rector of Oviedo Cathedral, approved the young priest's ministry, writing: The works of art that leave your factories will open paths, as much in the republics of South America as in the European nations... by the profundity of the thought and the Christian spirit that animates them, by the newness and beauty of the drawing and the careful execution... Continue without hesitation, for the good of religion, the profession of the arts, joining perfectly your sacerdotal vocation with your artistic aptitude.
[4]The original workshop was located on Calle Fernando el Santo in Madrid, but was soon relocated to the Hotel de las Rosas residence in the Altos del Hipodromo to accommodate the growing number of artisans.
In the healthiest part of Madrid, at the extension of la Castellana, to the left of the racetrack, are buildings surrounded by gardens, with studios, workshops and living quarters that are spacious and flooded with air and light.
[5]Félix Granda lived at the Hotel de las Rosas with his sister Candida, a childless widow who assisted him in the administration of the workshop.
The sculptors Jose Capuz Mamano, Luis Ortega Bru and Juan Vargas Cortes were among the many artisans who received their training at Talleres de Arte.
In 1911, the year of the International Eucharistic Congress in Madrid, Félix Granda won the gold medal at the city's Exposition of Decorative Arts.
This, coupled with Félix Granda's own aspiration: I am moved by the ideal of employing all my strength to make beautiful Thy temples and Thine altars, became the motto of Talleres de Arte.
The words that the man speaks are written on a banderole: Vetera novis augere et perficere (a motto of Pope Leo XIII: To augment and perfect the old by way of the new) and Defracti sunt rami ut ego insererer (Romans 11.19: The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in).
Ernest Grimaud DeCaux, the Madrid correspondent for The Times explained: At first sight he but returns to the first ages of the Church, when art was utilized to bring home to the multitudes, by the aid of symbols, religious dogmas and mysteries.
In the hands of this artist priest penetrated with the spirit of the past, versed in the essence of Christianity, but with a modern mind, it takes a new shape, and it is in this respect that Father Granda is an innovator, because, whilst still going to the old well of tradition, he draws fresh water from it.
Should we not take advantage of this immense arsenal of scientific data that they provide to us, to make richer and more varied our decorations, and to teach the truth contained in the verse of the Kingly Prophet: nimis profundae factae sunt cogitationes tuae Domine!?
[8] Granda preferred the direct carving of wood and stone to cast sculpture, believing that the easy methods of mass production resulted in a paganized sensuousness of form.
The sculptures carved by his artisans were rather noble and sober, full of gravity and purity, without tragic poses or excessive gestures; the most proper to the serene beauty of religious art.
[8] Granda decried theatricality in religious art, applying to it Saint Jerome's condemnation of pompous rhetoric: Like a strumpet in the streets, it does not aim at instructing the public, but at winning their favor.
[4] Zurbitu commented: Scripture, doctrine, liturgy, tradition... are the perennial fonts from which spring his artistic ideas; the arsenal of his decorative themes.
The great altars built in Talleres de Arte are truly poetic, each developing an entire cycle of liturgical and theological ideas, full of doctrine and religiosity.
Figures of the Four and Twenty Elders who worship the Lamb in St. John's Apocalypse are placed around the base, separated into three groups; eight kneel, eight bow profoundly, and eight lift bowls of smoking incense according to their degree of spiritual perfection.
Around the monstrance holding the Divine Solomon (Christ), the chosen men of Israel (Christians), armed with prayer and mortification, stand guard against the fears in the night (the traps that the Prince of Darkness has prepared in the shadows against the Church Militant).
He employed forms that would translate into popular imagination; angels and demons, monsters and mythological creatures, regional flora and fauna, and men at their everyday labors.
In his initial instructions to Félix Granda in 1891, Archbishop Cos encouraged him to restore to the objects of divine worship the sacred symbolism that they have lost through the centuries.
Under the direction of Félix Granda, Talleres de Arte designed and fabricated elaborate monstrances for the cathedrals of Leon, Lugo, Madrid, Oviedo and Burgos.
At its corners stand figures of the four Evangelists, and on its other façades are depicted the Holy Trinity, the Last Supper and the Wedding at Cana, which St. Cyril of Jerusalem saw as an image of transubstantiation.
The lower part of the pulpit's rostrum is decorated with four animals: a lion, a dog, a rooster and a ram, representing the necessary virtues of a good preacher: strength, fidelity, opportunity and courage.
A procession of figures representing the Patriarchs and Prophets stand on a plinth of marble and carry the Ark of the Covenant; above them statues of angels lift up the triumphant Christ Child.
And they know, most of all, the four representations of Asturian life - plowing the land, forging iron, fishing and mining - who, hammered in relief on the bottom part of the portals, are like men offering their daily struggles at the foot of the throne of their Queen.
The days of creation are represented by worlds budding from chaos, rays of light tearing the clouds, waters separating, vegetation blooming, beasts and fish and birds filling the earth.
