Madrid
Begin here for new photos and integrated pics with rakkity’s travelogue across the pond. At the bottom of the page is a link to Chapter II – new pics, a new story.
It’s 4:30 AM and I am on my way home. Given the hour I lose, I hope to be in Acton by 11 PM.
I loved the pictures of Segovia. I like it’s oldness. The cathedral must have been spectacular in person. Carlos I is indeed clever, one of the few monarchs left who actually serves a purpose. Wise enough to marry a Greek princess as well.
Comment by chris — April 9, 2005 @ 4:55 pm
My maternal grandmother used to call National Geographic her “travel service”, courtesy of which she’d seen the world. Lovely to follow in that sense Papacita and Co.’s well-documented footsteps! Even to share tasty meals……!
Seeing the evolution of Guernica must have been something! I remember learning how artists study subjects when I saw the many and varied versions of the (much-less-emotional) bridges and haystacks by Monet in an MFA retrospective. I’d previously thought of whatever familiar, “official” version of any great work as one-off art, not a culmination of a process.
Comment by adam — April 9, 2005 @ 7:56 pm
Thanks for putting this trip together for us! That was great. I have two questions (not because they are the only things I found interesting, but they’re the only things I can formulate a question about). Do you know anything about why the synagogue doors have that 5-fold pattern? And APPROXIMATELY how deep (or wide?) is the base of the aqueduct? It is mindboggling it has stood for 20 centuries. Makes the restaurant’s accomplishment seem insignificant. It seems like a good storm might knock it sideways. But you know, if they had counted on mortar or metal, the funds to keep up with maintenance wouldn’t have made it into the budget one century, and it would have fallen down.
Comment by jennifer — April 9, 2005 @ 10:04 pm
I wish I could find out something about the 5-fold pattern on that old synagogue door to tell you, Jennifer. If I run into any info on Islamic patterns that tells me, I’ll post it here.
But I can tell you something about the depth and width of the waterway in the aqueduct, because we saw the end of it where water used to pour out into the town square. It was surprisingly small–about a foot wide by 2 feet deep. Considering how high and long the aqueduct was, a little channel like that wasn’t much! But for centuries it may have supplied water day and night to on the order of a thousand people.
Adam mentions the development of a piece of art–according to the link you’ll go to if you click “Guernica” in Chapter_II, Picasso considered all of his art a process, rather than an end. First the artist designs the painting through a lot of trial and error, then instanciates it at one stage of its design. Afterwards as the viewer looks at it, the painting continues to change as the image passes through many mental stages, and even later, the process goes on in his memories.
Comment by rakkity — April 10, 2005 @ 4:47 pm