|
|
TRAVELS WITH MY ART -
2 - LA GIRALDA, SEVILLE.
I slept like a baby. I don't know why people use that expression to
describe deep, refreshing and uninterrupted slumber; my experience
of babies calls to mind continual waking in the night accompanied by
crying, chewing of blankets and uncontrolled pooing. Fortunately I
wasn't teething.
A different and cheerful city greeted me, as I emerged blinking into
the noisy urban sunlight from my hotel. Yes, even the sunshine is
noisy in Spain. The hotel turned out to be not only cheap, but quite
serviceable and in an excellent location, only ten minutes walk from
Seville Cathedral, and La Giralda; my first stop of the day. Well,
actually a café on the Avenida de Construction was my first stop,
for café con leche y una tostada, to set myself up for my first days
painting. This was after all, a business trip. The Fothergills
Gallery Summer Exhibition was only a couple of months away, and
'Impressions of Spain' had already been billed as a cornerstone of
the show.
Drinking coffee outdoors in the warm morning sunshine was a treat in
itself after the cold grey wet winter I had just left behind. As I
was seated in contemplation, a voice called my attention. A small
man stood in front of me, talking unintelligibly. He was bending
forwards, offering me a wooden box with a ramp constructed on top. I
thought perhaps it was a model of some Inca temple he was trying to
persuade me to buy, but as I couldn't think of a use for one I
endeavoured to communicate this.
As soon as I spoke he said " Ah, Inglese! "
and then exclaimed "Shoeshine!" and burst out laughing,
repeating the word again, as if it was a joke he'd just been told. I
tried to smile and shrug him off but he was most insistent. Oh what
the hell, they were dusty after the previous nights tramping, and my
shoes did have a long road ahead this week. I assented, and he
proceeded with a most elaborate ritual.
|
|
With my left foot
placed on the ramp of the Inca temple, first the laces were tucked
in, then some shoehorn-type pieces were inserted in the top of the
shoe to protect my socks. A huge shoe brush was produced which
danced around my foot with great panache, as a sort of preamble. He
then unscrewed the top from a bottle and poured some reddish-brown
liquid on to a small mop brush with a long handle ( I would have
paid good money for that brush). Thereafter a massaging operation
began which will remain one of my life's great experiences. Lovingly
the liquid was applied, and all the while in Spanish he was trying
to explain to me about his large family - nueve bambini - nine
children, and other stuff, which passed me by. The polish had to
dry, before the procedure was repeated on the other foot. In between
each part, he would make an announcement, as though describing the
stages of a Zen tea ceremony. Finally, the big brush returned, and
with a vigour that surprised me for his age, he burnished my shoes
to a gloss that I could have shaved in the reflection of.
The production of a
cloth at the end seemed superfluous, but allowed him a few more
theatrical flourishes of the hand that I would not have missed.
Finally, he announced once again "Shoeshine!" and I could have burst
into applause. "Quanto es?" I asked. "Mille"
he replied. "Mille?-
that's a thousand pesetas, why that’s four quid." He shrugged and
held up eight fingers and a thumb- "nueve bambini"- he repeated. I
handed over the money. "Cigarrerra?" he asked. I'd have given him
anything. I opened my tin of small cigars and he took one seeming
delighted. Lighting one for myself as well, I reflected that I had
paid more and got less from an evening at the theatre before now.
* * *
One of the problems with a painting trip is that there are usually
far more subjects to paint than one could ever sketch or deal with
in the given period, and consequently it can be hard to settle to
one view in favour of another. The previous year, in Venice, I had
decided against climbing the Campanile in St. Mark's Square (as,
alas, sightseeing has so often to be sacrificed for sketching time),
assuming that there would not be a paintable view from the top apart
from a dense jumble of rooftops. Subsequently I saw a fabulous line
drawing of the view stretching across the lagoon, in a book of
paintings of Venice, and kicked myself for dismissing it. Thus, in
Seville, I had determined to visit the top of the tower adjoining
the Cathedral, known as La Giralda.
Almost a hundred
metres tall, its exterior is highly decorated with Moorish
ornaments, fine arches and delicate arabesques. A perfect fusion of
Christian and Muslim inspiration, it has become a symbol of Seville,
and deservedly appears on postcards, thimbles and T-shirts
throughout the city. A classic view of it, from the walls of the
adjacent Alcazar fortress must have been painted a thousand times
before, by a thousand different artists, but I wasn't going to miss
out; I'd come all this way and now it was my turn. I settled down in
a shady spot and, in typical English fashion, painted my way through
the Siesta period of the day.
'How do you know when a painting is finished?' I am sometimes asked.
With a watercolour, it's usually when it suddenly starts getting
worse and not better every time you touch it. Then there's nothing
more you can do with it, even if you don't like it, except perhaps
sell it. In this case I became bored with my staring at my efforts.
"TIREDNESS KILLS PAINTINGS, TAKE A BREAK" appeared on a
motorway sign in my brain, so I packed up and wandered off for
refreshment. Too hot for lunch, so I had an ice-cream (why do they
taste so good in hot countries?), and then decided it was time to
sample the view from the top of the Giralda.
© Christopher Fothergill 2007 |