The blonde who did not convince the people of Cadiz

[Gallop]

The blonde who did not convince the people of Cadiz







He was supposed to look at the photos that the aristocratic ladies from Cádiz were surely bringing him. But he did not. The priest and sculptor Félix Granda (1898- 1954) fell in love with one of the ladies who traveled to Madrid to ask him for a new carving of the Patron Saint, which had been destroyed by fire caused by some hooligans in May 1931. And Maria Pepa Díaz was shaped by the work and grace of Granda's gouges in the Virgin of the Rosary.

Blond hair, green eyes and a mature face configured an image outside the established canons that the Asturian author delivered in 1933. A beautiful image halfway between Nordic rotundity and Andalusian beauty that broke the iconography of the Virgin of the Rosary of Cadiz. But the exotic beauty of Granda did not take hold in a society accustomed, under the weight of more than 300 years of history, to the imprint of the previous one, as the historian Ángel Mozo Polo recalls in the work published in 1997 on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Coronation.

Although the priest only had to carve a new face (the hands and the child of the previous one were saved from the fire), the newly released Patroness did not acquire that anointing that makes religious images move masses of faithful. The people of Cádiz quickly began to call her affectionately as 'La Rubia de Granda'.


Not even the press of the time seemed to be very sympathetic to the work. On December 23 Santo Domingo opened after intense restoration work. The following day, a very brief note speaks of its reopening and of "an image of the Most Holy Virgin of the Rosary, whose hands and the Child Jesus that she holds in them belong to the destroyed image". Nothing more, there are no references to the details of this new carving or its author.

The Andes arrived

And the Dominicans, aware of the moderate affection of Cadiz towards La Rubia de Granda, end up withdrawing her from the cult and keeping her in the form of a bust in the Convent. It is the year 1943 and they commissioned a new carving to the Sevillian sculptor and priest, Jose Fernandez Andes. This one does not resemble the one of the XVII century, but it is not so far from its imprint. And she does receive the affection of Cadiz to the point of being crowned in 1947.





Year in which Granda returns to Cadiz, no longer as an imaginer but as a great goldsmith. He took charge of an old crown acquired from the Convent of Candelaria and enriched it with precious stones and placed a kind of Golden Fleece. Those who remember Granda's visit that year speak of a corpulent man, with a spotless cassock and "with a certain air of sufficiency", as Mozo Polo explains. A conceited and haughty air perhaps caused by his fame as a great goldsmith and jeweler, creator of one of the great prizes of Cadiz. Or perhaps motivated by the resentment he felt for the city that said 'no' to his blonde.


https://www.lavozdigital.es/cadiz/20...010061352.html

[Gallop]

María Pepa Díaz in motion

The blonde who did not convince the people of Cádiz as the Virgin of the Rosary



Colored
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYsb...NKmpU&index=21

[NSXD60]

I don't think the outnumbered inhabitants 50 years hence will have any say in the matter when she is recarved with a woke Afro.

[Mortimer]

I dont quiete get it, was she unconvincing because she is blonde? Or what does it tell us?

[Gaditanian]

To be honest, I prefer that version that the second one, more natural and realistic.

The traditional version of the virgin always scared me by her hieratic features.

And I now realize that this way of making statues is too similar to what Iberians used to do like the lady of elche or the lady of baza.

[Gallop]

I dont quiete get it, was she unconvincing because she is blonde? Or what does it tell us?

It is a reference used by the author of the article who explains that the new image broke with the canons of the previous image that had been destroyed and also if the woman was a well-known aristocrat of the city and still alive because they are seeing Maria Pepa moving around the city and at the same time her face in the image of the virgin in the temple, the new image should not have convinced the citizens. The headline plays with words and should not be taken in a simplistic and strict sense.

The citizens knew that it was a whim of the sculptor for Maria Pepa and must have seen it too mundane or personal and in a way they were not convinced by the whole process of choice of the model and for that reason that blonde was not convinced to represent the new image of the virgin and patron saint of the city of Cadiz. I hope now they understand it a little better.

[Gallop]

To be honest, I prefer that version that the second one, more natural and realistic.

The traditional version of the virgin always scared me by her hieratic features.

And I now realize that this way of making statues is too similar to what Iberians used to do like the lady of elche or the lady of baza.

I have seen both in the National Archaeological Museum, Madrid and well they are impressive but I have never had in my mind the comparison with the Catholic religious imagery of the virgins. From my point of view and my extrasensory perception, nothing to do with each other.