Everyday one learns something

    Everybody loves lists. “Worst 5 movies of the year”, “Best first date puddings”, “10 reasons to drink tequila”, etc... Quick, funny, and they last as long as your microwave noodles take to be cooked.

    On behalf of this so post-modern invention I made this superb list of art stuff. Among dozens of possibilities I will choose true facts and curiosities known by connoisseurs and fascinating for sympathizers. I hope it was delightful for everyone and the first of many.

What is the Eiffel Tower?

     Recently I have been asked in different circles about the origin and meaning of the Eiffel Tower. We may not deny the interest in such a iron colossus dominating the Champ-de-Mars by the River Seine. Quintessential symbol of Paris and a source of both artistic and architectural discussions. What now I expose is my humble opinion and therefore you can accept it or not. Truth be told.

    At mid-nineteenth century a number of personalities begin to focus on the architecture that looks to the future turning away the reigning historicism in the Western world. We could describe it as "Architecture of Engineers" and among its favorite items would be the use of iron as constructive element. Previously The Industrial Revolution of the late Eighteenth Century and the early Nineteenth  Century  transforms the use of building materials. New technologies allow the emergence of  a  new  aesthetic  and typologies in architecture.

    Regarding the iron, metallurgical industry develops such that this metal is obteined in large amounts and higher quality and it allows its extensive use as in construction of bridges:

Iron Bridge, River Severn, Shropshire, England

Anamorphosis, the art of deception

    Taking a look at a National Gallery of London guide I ran into the oil painting "The Ambassadors" by Hans Holbein and remembered my shock when in class (a century ago, more or less) Antonio Calvo   Castellón revealed a hidden surprise in this double portrait:

The more I seek the more I find.

    A few weeks ago we were wandering by Weymouth Quay and suddenly we saw a massive building, on whose façade one may read “Brewers Quay”. That building was an old distillery reused for art and craft shops. Dozens of little shops occupied both floors, offering a motley route where there were machinery, products and workers before. You could find Victorian style furniture, 1980’s football cards, jewelry, books or clothes. Then we might say, a sale and purchase warehouse, so it was a good place to rescue hidden treasures.

Uncle Sam and my missing art.

    Before becoming other emigrant, I used to live in Granada, Spain. Specifically in a town called Ogíjares. I grew up there, and there I met some of the stuff that define me. Maybe, the first or second church in which I came in was the Church of Saint Anne, in the low neighbourhood. I want to dedicate this post to it because there is a curious episode in it. It doesn’t mean that there are not another interesting things and stories in Ogíjares, but now we just have time for this.

    This story goes back four hundred years, when it was decided to build a new church over the remains of a first church built on the same place that the primitive mosque. This new church was dedicated to Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin. The style was that which spread on the most of the parishes those years, Mudejar. Under elaborated traceries and muqarnas it was built a altarpiece dedicated to Saint Anne dated in 1567. The panels in the centre division were made by Diego de Pesquera. But, if we stare carefully at it, we would notice that something is missing, exactly on the first floor, a panel has vanished and a little wooden figure of Christ-Child has taken its place.

Where there's art, there's Neo-classic

    During my last travel to Scotland I visited one of those warehouses concealed among bumpy roads and forests. Walking through racks filled up by antiquities, a pair of objects caught my attention. They were two pieces of pottery: a mug and a little plate, with a pale-cobalt blue tonality and matt finishing. I wouldn’t realize them if they hadn’t held those great classical reliefs.