Serafin Marsal ( Cardona, Spain, 1862 –

Asunción Asunción (, , , Guarani: Paraguay) is the capital and the largest city of Paraguay. The city stands on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River, almost at the confluence of this river with the Pilcomayo River. The Paraguay River and the Bay o ...

, 1956) was a Spanish born

Paraguayan Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

sculptor.YUBI, Javier. TESOROS DE BARRO. Text published in the Sunday magazine "ABC Color" on 28 October 2007.

Biography

After studying for six years at the Academy of Fine Arts in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

, Marsal moved to Buenos Aires, where several French, Italian and Spanish artists from sculpture and metal engraving areas became famous. Serafin marsal

In 1898, Marsal received the third prize from the National Fine Arts Exhibition of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the Capital city, capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata ...

. In the next year, he accepted an invitation to teach drawing and sculpture in Santa Fé. There, Marsal participated in urban planning, sculpture production and became part of the city artistic and cultural life. One of his sculptures, a bust of the educator called Sarmento, remains in the plaza dedicated to the teacher. In 1901, he became Art Director of the "Blanco & Negro" magazine. In 1907, at the age of 46 and highly recognized in the artistic field, Marsal moved to Asunción in Paraguay according to medical recommendations, due to the health problems experienced by his wife. In this smaller city, he faced economic difficulties, as orders were rarer. He taught on the Arts School. Even with no orders, Marsal started to produce small clay statues that represented the Paraguayan people with perfection. Ycuarape

Artworks

Made by hand with clay from Picolmayo River, each statuette represented a typical figure of the Paraguayan people with a variety of details and beautiful finishing. Marsal made each figure a

mold A mold () or mould () is one of the structures certain fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of spores containing fungal secondary metabolites. The spores are the dispersal units of the fungi. Not ...

from which he extracted the essential piece. However, his method was not a multiple-piece system, so the finishing of each piece was made by hand, and one was different from the other. Besides beauty and a careful finishing, his pieces have an important historical value, as they portray typical figures of a period. They are social representations: There is a woman carrying a jar over her head, donkey as a means of transportation, Indian faces, a man that sold

fruits In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particul ...

, among many others that frequented the Asunción market. In addition, all figures were entitled in

Guaraní Guarani, Guaraní or Guarany may refer to Ethnography * Guaraní people, an indigenous people from South America's interior (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia) * Guaraní language, or Paraguayan Guarani, an official language of Paraguay * ...

, the people

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

. In autobiographical notes, Marsal once wrote: "For approximately 18 years I dedicate myself to making little figures in clay. I calculate that perhaps one hundred small figures were created monthly in my house to be sold in North America, fifty thousand to be sold in Central America and South

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...

; in Europe, four or five thousand; in Japan a bit more one thousand, and many others whose destination I ignore". To date, what remained from his works, as the used material is quite fragile, belongs to private collections and to the

Museo Memoria de la Ciudad The Museum of the Memory of the City (''Museo Memoria de la Ciudad'') is located in the Viola House (Casa Viola), one of the nine buildings that make up the architectonic complex Manzana de la Rivera, in front the Government house, in Asunción, ...

, which has a collection of 36 pieces.

References

External links

Guarani Portal

Magazine ABC Article about Marsal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marsal, Serafin 1862 births 1956 deaths Paraguayan sculptors 20th-century sculptors 19th-century sculptors Spanish emigrants to Paraguay