Seville, And How The Divine Dali Earned His Mustache

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais' character has made this city world famous, though that was hardly necessary; the city is a collection of amazing temples and monuments. Christopher Columbus' remains rest in the Cathedral here.

The largest Gothic Church in the world is here,

attached to the amazing Moorish Girandola, with it's spinning wind-vane, and ramp tower that can be reached on horse-back for an unrivaled view of the city.

There is also amazing modern architecture, including this plaza canopy by the German architect Jürgen Mayer.

Naturally, there is the food, and freshly picked fruit that surpasses the most elaborate dessert confection that any baker could ever create by skill or artifice, so perfect and sublime are nature's creations.

The architecture is beautiful, the weather is beautiful, the food is beautiful, and the city is beautiful.

Signs in bars espouse universal truths.

The women, well, for a Northerner like me, the Spanish equivalent of the American Southern Belle, with all her coquettish charms and native grace only temporarily hiding her fiery Andalusian blood... the combination is irresistible.

But my pilgrimage here is different. I'm here to pay homage to something greater than anything that actually ever happened in Santiago. I could end my journey here and be emotionally satisfied. Amidst all of this beauty, I seek that place where someone first saw beneath the surface and depicted it; how things really are. Recently, while strolling through the streets of Barcelona on a perfect Spring evening, I had just such a conversation with my friends Pablo and Anna. Anna pointed out that the reality depicted in Woody Allen's recent film "Vicky Christine Barcelona" is only one side of the coin, and there exists the reality depicted in Iñárritu's film "Biutiful", both films, ironically, starring Javier Bardem. To really appreciate beauty, we must expose ourselves to every facet of what makes something beautiful, and that can often be disconcerting.

I move silently through the narrow streets, some not much wider than the handlebars of my bicycle.

Through these very streets walked someone who would change the world forever, who would change our way of seeing things. He was a minor noble, and regularly was in the king's presense, but in his lifetime he achieved only passing fame. It would take 250 years before his genius was understood and only then fully appreciated. The streets widen and become a confused tangle.

I ask directions, no one has any idea... Nobody knows, so familiar are we to His discoveries that we've always assumed the world was like this... I move restlessly through the Catholic streets.

Slowly I triangulate on a small area that contains a street that is just one house long, and there it is, I see it.

I move reverently towards it, I consider dismounting and approaching on my knees, The Divine Dali would have, but decide against it; at this stage I can't risk an injury. I approach, with temerity, almost trembling at the sublime transcendence of the moment, like my own personal Temple Mount wall, there is only the murmur of the city in the background, I am alone. I anticipate that electrifying moment of tangible contact with reality.

Do you see it? Look closer...

Still closer ...

Here, gentle reader, no less a personage than Diego Velázquez was born in June of 1599, and the world has never been the same since. He painted with bold strokes, anticipating the Impressionists by hundreds of years, and suggesting enormous detail without actually painting any of it. It's as if he's saying, "Do I really have to spell it out for you? Have you never seen lace or a silk shirt before?" We believe we're actually seeing something that isn't really there, and thus the illusion comes around full circle, that alchemical transition between the beauty we percieve and the reality we know. Both in his choice of subjects and in his technique, he invites us to admire all that is beautiful in the world, but as well to see behind the beauty, and to appreciate things for what they really are, and then appreciate it all the more on this much greater level.

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Oh, yes, I'd almost forgotten, Dali and his moustache... He stole it off the self portrait of Velasquez depicted in "Las Meninas."

" Detail from Las Meninas"

 

Link to photos