La CANTERÍA en el Pirineo - Tallado y modelado artesanal de piedras en piezas artísticas - Documental

The geological variety of the Pyrenean mountain range and the quality of the materials that compose it have been the keys to the exploitation of various quarries throughout this vast territory. Today, in the village of Sinués, one of the traditional open-pit quarries in the Pyrenees is still preserved. Antonio and Alfredo Guerrero are the ones in charge of its exploitation. In the quarry itself, these craftsmen break into smaller blocks the large stone benches that fell the last time they dynamited. They now have a lot of loose material and there will be no need to blast for a few years. The four pillars that will escort a monument is the work that our stonecutter friends are going to do. The process begins by getting the hard limestone to the desired measurements. Antonio must break the stones against the law, that is, in the opposite direction to the horizontal sedimentation of the materials that compose it. To do this, at the stroke of a pointer, he makes the wedges on a previously marked line. In these small holes he introduces the wedges. With accurate blows of the mallo in the wedges, the stonecutter opens the stone in the desired place. Checking the measurements, Antonio wants to obtain a square stone. The distance between the wedges depends on the thickness of the stone. It depends on the width of the stone, because they can be placed at 25 cm. It depends, if it is thinner, maybe with a wedge it would have been the same, but since it is thicker, you put more or less on it. Now I'm going to unfold it. Unfolding the stone consists of cutting it into two or more pieces along the sedimentation line. To get two, more or less, for the width, I need one of 14 and I will make it 10 thick. With his accurate hit on the pointer, Antonio follows an imaginary line along which the stone gives way. The cut has been perfect and our friend the stonemason already has the two pieces he needs to make the base of the columns. It is time to carve the rough stone and the craftsman draws some lines that will serve to square the piece. The trimmer is a flat cutting tool that our friend the stonecutter uses to straighten the edges. The first face will serve as a reference for Antonio to "interguard" the rest of the edges and surfaces. This is the lowest tip there is. Well now I look from here, from the edge where this rule is to this one and with one eye closed it will give me the "interguarde". Once the edges have been marked, the stonemason begins to smooth the faces with precise pointer strokes on the surface. We will check that everything is in order. I think so. Game. Sometimes the pointers break due to the hardness of the stone and because the blacksmith has not given them the proper temper. Because it has no temper, because they have not given it enough temper or they have burned it too much. This is what I'm giving you a roll that is said, but in a small way, so that I don't chip the stone down here when I hit it with the pointer. The gradina is a kind of chisel that the stonemason uses to make the roll of the edge, thus preventing the stone from chipping. One of the main pieces of the column that Antonio Guerrero is working on has already been finished. Now it is good to have a break from work to eat at the pit itself, and then to continue. From a stone cube, Angel Carnicer is going to be in charge of making the spheres that will finish off the columns. With precise strokes of the pointer, he gives the piece a cylindrical shape. After marking the desired measurements, Angel finishes off the corners to give the piece a spherical shape. The column is now finished. This whole process has been the result of the manual work of these traditional stonemasons from Calatorao, who one day decided to move to the Pyrenees to work one of the few quarries that are still active. A series of coincidences brought us here, that is to say, we began to work a little on the stone at the beginning, from the workshop school that Teresa was working on, we began to do some work in Sabiñánigo, which is where we live, and then it coincided when the stonemason here retired and the Jaca town hall showed interest in the Torrijos quarry continuing to function and all these circumstances encouraged us to come here. In the neighboring valley, Teresa and Jesús are new stone workers, as they like to define themselves, to respect and value the technique of traditional stonemasons. They came from the big city and for three years they have dedicated themselves to this work that is so attractive to them of carving and modeling stone. Teresa is in charge of carving the pieces of soft sandstone that she obtains in the Agüero quarry. Sandstone is much softer than limestone. To work it, Teresa uses small steel chisels that allow her to give the most difficult and strange shapes to the surface of the stone. But in the Torrijos quarry the tools are more modern and sophisticated than in the Sinués one. The pointer that is traditionally used to chop the wedges by hand, Jesús has replaced it with the radial one with a diamond disc. These new craftsmen have made the traditional work inherited from medieval stonemasons compatible with the current techniques of transforming stone into ornamental pieces. While Teresa carves and scratches the sandstone with the small chisels, Jesús shapes the bowl into a limestone fountain. These stone craftsmen know very well that their construction work today is not as profitable as it used to be, because there are cheaper and easier materials to work with. Much of the traditional stone, of what has been used traditionally, that industrial quarries have managed to manufacture this product at a more affordable price, so to continue working manually, manually, by hand, we understand that it makes more sense to manufacture a product that the industry cannot make. Teresa and Jesús dedicate themselves to creating the forms that their imagination dictates, because the important thing is that the craftsman himself, whatever his technique or the tools used, is satisfied with the piece he has in his hands. And of course, stone is a challenge, because it is a material that resists a lot, and well, it is about reaching consensus. Between you and the stone you have to reach an understanding to see what it wants to let itself do and you to see the most you can get out of it. I'm Eugenio Monesma, director and producer of the documentary you just saw. 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