At the end of the 19th century, one of the most genuine industries in the municipality was born in Olot, that of the manufacture of images of saints. A sector that in its most prosperous time, after the Civil War, when the churches were repopulated with images that had been destroyed during the war, had more than forty workshops that employed more than 1,500 people, among them painters, sculptors, retouchers, molders or wood craftsmen. His carvings were exported to all five continents.
Now, a collaborative website will make it possible to inventory, catalog and visit all the places on the globe where there is evidence of religious images designed and manufactured in the saints' workshops of Olot. The platform, named WikiSants, wants to encourage user participation and encourage social exchange among communities linked to religious imagery, such as collectors, religious people or artists, according to Martina Fernández, project coordinator.
In its first stages, when it has been active for less than two months, it has information on more than a hundred carvings, the majority located in Catalonia, mainly in churches in La Garrotxa.
For each of the images that have been catalogued, the Internet user will find an information sheet in which the name of the piece appears, the workshop that manufactured it, whether it has been restored, the state of conservation, the date of manufacture, the depository of the image (individuals, churches, convents, educational centers...) or the materials with which it is made, most of them with cardboard pulp, a material invented by Ramon Puigmitjà that allowed the creation of lighter and more solid images.
The size of the image is also collected, as is a map of the place where it is currently located, and the Internet user can take a virtual tour of the worship center where the carving is located or get closer to the image in 3D.
“The industry of the saints of Olot is a unique product that is spread throughout the world and with this website we want to highlight this industry and create a world map of the religious imagery of Olot,” explains Pep Oliveras, manager of El Arte. Cristiano de Olot, promoter of the platform.
Founded in 1880, it was the first and only industry that has survived the successive crises in the sector: from wars to Asian competition, added to the faith and economic crises that have also taken a toll on this industry.
Today Arte Cristino has 17 workers and currently exports between 25% and 30% of production, mainly to countries such as Italy, the United States and Latin America. The business shares its headquarters with the Museu dels Sants d'Olot, founded in 2007, whose objective is to publicize the craft of artisanal manufacture of religious imagery.
Oliveras explains that the idea of creating this collaborative website arose as a result of the countless calls they received almost daily alerting them to the presence of carvings with the Olota seal throughout the world.
Thus they learned, for example, of the existence of a statue in Patagonia, of two angels in the Cathedral of Havana or they have discovered, for example, the presence of two saints in a house of the Daughters of Charity of Kigali (Rwanda), thanks to the warning of some missionary nuns.
The WikiSants platform, which is currently accessible in Catalan and Spanish, will be expanded to other languages so that the website has a global reach.
