Talking to the Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo is to enter another dimension, more leisurely and less material, of life. Sotoo, chief sculptor of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. There, he came "to stone-cut" and, through this stone, and through the figure and the work of Antoni Gaudí converted to Christianity.
Last June 26, Etsuro Sotoo was in charge of inaugurating the first edition of the St. Thomas More Night, an evening dedicated to reflect on the role of culture in the contemporary world from the Christian inspiration, promoted by the Ángel Herrera Oria Cultural Foundation.
Shortly before this meeting, Omnes was able to interview the author of the Nativity façade of the Catalan temple and talk to him about the "back door" through which he entered the faith.
You open the first edition of the St. Thomas More Night. Another Thomas, Aquinas, spoke of the way of beauty to arrive at the knowledge of God. Is beauty the beginning or the goal?
- That's a good question. So far no one has asked me this. Beauty is beginning and end. This is the right answer. Because from the beginning of the world art is present and I think, in the future everybody will be an artist. It is the ultimate craft.
Everything is advancing, it's very clear in technology. Life is changing. But the craft of the artist will not only not be lost, but everyone will be an artist.
The ultimate craft of humanity is art. Everyone enjoys art. That will be our future.
This art, this beauty, is it then the "ultimate" way, the one that everyone can have, to reach God?
- Thank God we are not the same. Not everyone shares the same cause for which we find God. Goethe said that "whoever does not have science and art, let him have religion", through religion, you will find that science and art. If you have studies, you will find God in religion. In the end we all arrive at the same place: the educated and the uneducated, the rich and the poor....
In my case, I am Japanese and I came through work. Working. God gave me this way of knowing Him. I wanted to do my work well, to build, to make the sculptures of the Church with all its symbolism. God gave me "my carrot". If I wanted to do well that task in the Sagrada Familia, I had to be at the same point that Gaudi And where is Gaudí? In God's world. I had to be there. At the beginning my motive was not spiritual, it was simply "to do it right", the weak point of the Japanese (laughs).
My entry into the faith was somewhat peculiar, I am almost ashamed to confess it, but we arrived at the same place. God calculates well. The beginning was to get to know him well, to do my job well; it was a "back door", and I entered. Then the Catholic road is wide, everyone fits: there are people who start running, people who zigzag, ... I, like a good Japanese, went step by step.
Could we say that God was found among the stones?
- Why did I start to cut stone? Why did I fall in love with stone? Because, since I was a child, I had a question. I wasn't even aware of what it was or the meaning of that restlessness I had. Then I discovered stone.
I began to pick at stone, almost irrationally. It was a force that was driving me there to find an answer. "To answer that question I have inside me, I have to pick stone". I don't know why I thought like that; but to know what the question was and to find the answer to this inner restlessness I needed to sweat, I needed, even, to bleed, to find, to form my question and to find the answer to this question of my life.
It helped me a lot, because the stone led me to the Sagrada Familia, the Sagrada Familia introduced me to Gaudí, and Gaudí introduced me to the Great Master, to God. You can see that the path was not wrong, but on the contrary, it was very correct.
Among the works you are working on, one of the most important is the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. How is the task of finishing what Gaudí imagined for this temple?
- Gaudí left nothing written about the Sagrada Familia. That is why I needed to see his project differently. You were born into a Christian society, many times, you have been baptized almost without realizing it...
My case is not like that, -although I went to a Catholic kindergarten-. I could see or notice things that many people would see in Catholics as always, they do not notice. What for the usual Catholics is normal for me was a jewel.
Many times I am like a baby discovering a leaf and it is a gift I have received. I have learned very beautiful and good things, through foreign eyes.
The Sagrada Familia has been under construction for more than a century. In an era in which speed and "the ephemeral" prevail, what can we draw from this reality? Is it worth it?
- Society wants everything fast and easy. We have forgotten about "sweat", about sacrifice. And the fast road does not lead to the Great Master. Without sacrifice we will not find anything, we have not found it this way in the whole history of mankind and this is not going to change the future.
If a mother, when raising her baby, thinks only of "saving": money, time, energy, love..., the child will perhaps grow physically, like a plant, but it will not be formed. Of course, there is a secret here: this sacrifice is transformed by love.
Mothers sacrifice with love, with pleasure. This is the secret we have forgotten trying to save. We all, in the end, suffer, we sacrifice, but we have to do it in the right way, we need teachers and we need the Master.
