{"id":3172,"date":"2025-03-07T09:52:52","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T08:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/?p=3172"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T09:07:16","slug":"who-were-the-real-models-on-the-nativity-facade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/qui-son-els-models-reals-de-la-facana-del-naixement\/","title":{"rendered":"Who were the real models on the Nativity fa\u00e7ade?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sculptors in Gaud\u00ed\u2019s time created plaster moulds of objects, animals and plants, but hid this practice as they thought it took away from their achievement. The artistic avant-garde was moving towards exalting the artist and avoiding copies. However, when Gaud\u00ed discovered that the Greeks had used this technique, he felt justified in his choices and learnt everything he could about the technique and moulding live subjects<\/strong>. He used this techniquefor the sculptures on the Nativity fa\u00e7ade<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two main things that drove him to use this technique were surely, on the one hand, his\u202fdesire to express life<\/strong>, avoiding the often deathly expressiveness of many sculptures, which fit with the message of the Nativity fa\u00e7ade, which is an explosion of life. And, on the other, his\u202fdesire for cohesiveness among the sculptures<\/strong>\u202fon the fa\u00e7ade. To do so, the professionals Gaud\u00ed surrounded himself with had to humbly accept anonymity and adhere to his way of doing things. They couldn\u2019t leave their own mark on the work, so it wouldn\u2019t become a hodgepodge of different personal styles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u202f FROM SKELETONS TO REAL MODELS<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To delve deeper into this technique, despite going back hundreds of years, Gaud\u00ed began by studying the human body. To do so, he went to the anatomy classrooms at the hospital to learn from cadavers. With this knowledge, he made skeletons out of wire and dressed them with a metal mesh to be modelled. Once he was happy with the position and appearance, he looked for real models and took photographs before, finally, making moulds. The person would have to wear a special tunic, or take off their clothes if necessary, and was covered in plaster, forming a hard outer shell. The whole process only took a few minutes, however some couldn\u2019t bear the sensation and passed out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u202f TRIBUTE TO THE PEOPLE OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaud\u00ed did not complicate things when choosing who would be immortalised on the fa\u00e7ade. He went with the people closest to hand: labourers from the construction site, pilgrims to the Temple and children from the parochial school on site. In short, people from the\u202fhumble neighbourhood of \u201cEl Poblet\u201d, the name the Sagrada Fam\u00edlia district went by before the 20th\u202fcentury<\/strong>, who came by to admire and see what was happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there was a\u202fstory behind some of his choices.<\/strong> One such case was the \u202fmodels chosen for the trumpeting angels.<\/strong> At that time, the Temple was surrounded by open fields that were often used for military manoeuvres. Once, some soldiers from the bugle corps were playing right on the corner opposite the Temple, just below the workshop. This was extremely annoying to Gaud\u00ed, who at the time was in the middle of a visit with his friend Bishop Torras i Bages, and told them to stop. The soldiers\u2019 superiors were offended and went up to see who had given them that order. In the end, the bishop had to intervene to calm things down, and the three trumpeters ended up sitting as the models for the angels that were still needed for the fa\u00e7ade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Trumpeting\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Trumpeting angles on the Nativity fa\u00e7ade<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE MODEL CHOSEN AND THE FIGURE THEY REPRESENT<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaud\u00ed chose people who varied widely: there\u2019s everything from bishops to rag men, non-commissioned officers to goat herders, tavern hands to labourers. Because, more than \u2018artistic beauty\u2019, he was truly interested in the expressiveness of these people. Gaud\u00ed believed the truth of life was a reflection of eternal beauty and that each being is a piece of God. So, there was always some association between the model chosen and the figure they represented<\/strong>. So, the schoolchildren were used for the angels in the crypt and stillborn babies from the hospital represented the massacre of the innocents. It was also this search for resemblance in their essence that led him to choose the models for the most important sculptures on the fa\u00e7ade.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, for the Virgin Mary<\/strong>, Gaud\u00ed chose an older single woman who was so religious that she wanted to walk to the Holy Land. When she reached Premi\u00e0 de Mar, 20 kilometres from Barcelona, however, she said, \u201cMy God that\u2019s far!\u201d and took the train back home. ForSaint Joseph<\/strong>, he found his perfect model in a stonemason who had missed work several days in a row. When they went to see him, they found him on the ground on a torn up straw mattress, next to his wife, who was praying for him to get well. And for the baby Jesus in the cr\u00e8che, he chose a real new-born baby: the granddaughter of his great friend and sculptor Lloren\u00e7 Matamala.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This resemblance is what Gaud\u00ed sought out, also, for the Roman soldier in the massacre of innocents<\/strong>: He chose a strong tavern hand because he was from Tarragona and Gaud\u00ed believed people from this region to have features reminiscent of emperors and Roman patricians. Plus, it turned out he had six toes on one foot, instead of five, and anomaly Gaud\u00ed left visible in the sandals he was wearing and that we can relate to another anomaly: that of killing babies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Roman\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Escena d\u2019un soldat rom\u00e0  a la matan\u00e7a dels innocents<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MOULDING TECHINIQUE WITH ANIMALS<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaud\u00ed used not only human models, but also animals for this moulding technique<\/strong>. So, the turkeys, hens and geese were from a neighbouring farm. However, the best story seems to be the one about the donkey for the sculpture group of the flight into Egypt<\/strong>. To start off, they had to buy the animal from an old clay seller who often passed through these neighbourhoods, selling clay, which was used for crockery, because she didn\u2019t want to let them use it. However, the donkey resisted the modelling operations, so Gaud\u00ed had her hoisted up in a sling under her belly. Once suspended off the ground, terrified, she was still and then, could be moulded easily.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Flight\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Flight into Egypt scene. Mary, sitting on top of the donkey that was moulded <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, Gaud\u00ed, in addition to representing in stone the herbs and animals from the plot of land and its surroundings, also left us a good representation of the people who lived in the one of the poorest neighbourhoods of the time. This article, then, is in remembrance and a small tribute to everyone who volunteered for this living cr\u00e8che and who, despite the passing years, will live on eternally in Gaud\u00ed\u2019s work. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L\u2019emmotllat amb guix d\u2019objectes, animals o plantes era un recurs que usaven els escultors de l\u2019\u00e8poca de Gaud\u00ed, per\u00f2 se n\u2019amagaven perqu\u00e8 semblava que els restava m\u00e8rit. Les avantguardes art\u00edstiques caminaven cap a l\u2019enaltiment de l\u2019autor i defugien la c\u00f2pia. Gaud\u00ed, per\u00f2, en descobrir que els grecs ja feien servir aquesta t\u00e8cnica, es va sentir […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[16,44,131],"class_list":["post-3172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-gaudi","tag-local","tag-models"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sagradafamilia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}