Mingote He has left his most monumental vignette in Ribadesella, arranged in 6 large ceramic panels (four meters long by one and a half high, each). Of course, with characters cooked slowly in the stoneware, big noses and comic poses.
Located on the popular Paseo de la Grúa, one of the most beautiful maritime facades of the Cantabrian coast, the panels add an additional attraction to this busy path, uniting the cultural merits with those of the landscape, with the immediacy of the Sella estuary and the swinging sea in the background on the beach of Santa Marina. A unique estuary for a unique work.
What is officially known as the Historic Route of the Port are these six mosaics corresponding to six great moments of the past riosellano, previously selected by the local writer Toni Silva. Prehistory, Middle Ages, Renaissance, The War of Independence, emigration of the nineteenth century and the time closest to today, which includes the cariturized figures of the Prince and Princess of Asturias, occasional tourists of this municipality, in which Prince Felipe He appears without a head, since his improper height, Mingote seems to tell us, does not fit completely in the mural.
After the drawings made by Mingote, The panels were made by hand in the workshop of the Asturian ceramist Pachu MuñizLater, hundreds of small pieces were transferred to the San Claudio faience factory, in Oviedo, to unite all of them, more than 300, in a final firing at more than a thousand degrees. The result of this complex process are the six giant puzzles. According to Muñiz, who is the one who best knows the final work, the ideal way to appreciate the murals is from about three meters away, allowing the view to be recreated, from one side to the other, by the innumerable recesses of the composition, as if it were a question of large canvases of traditional painting.
The episodes reported by Mingote they mean:
1 · To the man of Tito Bustillo and the paleolithic culture of the caves;
2 · To Rome and the Middle Ages, with basic elements such as hunting and the reworking of whales or the granting of the Puebla Charter of 1270, founding of the council, which Alfonso X el Sabio granted to the town.
3 · The Renaissance, XNUMXth century, with the visit of Carlos V and the salt port.
4 · The War of Independence, with the occupation of the French.
5 · Emigration to America, XNUMXth century, with the brig «Habana».
6 · Print from the early twentieth century, before the civil war, with the iron bridge that crossed the estuary, bathers dressed in the old fashioned way, a man reading the local newspaper "L'Atalaya" and the Princes of Asturias.
But the best way to discover the entire artistic dimension of the panels is to visit Ribadesella and enjoy them live. In this way, walking through the port, the meaning of the drawings fits perfectly into the environment that gave them life and which was, finally, the one that convinced Mingote to decide on the job: "My friends and my wife came and the interest that I had had in the project turned into an illusion when we saw this beautiful town that we fell in love with."
Text: © Ramón Molleda for asturias.com
