THE LASCAUX CAVE

It is truly extraordinary that in the Upper Paleolithic, between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, these paintings could have been made. New studies, thanks to the objects found, place the paintings around 15,000 years ago.

We find around 1000 representations between paintings, drawings and engravings.

These paintings are not the work of a single hand, as the technical mastery of the images is very different from each other.

Let's look at these two balls that we find in the central room, called the Bull room. After analyzing the animals, we see the painter's ability to represent the shapes of the heads.

Some of the images are limited to being treated only with lines, while in others the painting fills the entire animal.

In this cave, we find, in addition to all kinds of animals, human forms and engravings of hands.

They used earth for the colors, and the blacks for the silhouettes were iron oxides they found in nature.

This cave shows that human beings, since time immemorial, have felt the need to express themselves through images.

The Lascaux cave (two bulls)

Although in the Lascaux cave basically animals are represented, here we see an image of a hominid next to the head of a bull and a bird.

We do not find any kind of stylization, and the representation is limited to a schematic image in which the painter has given great importance to the penis.

Curious is the fact that he has represented the head in the form of what we would say is a bird, and, like the images of animals, the head is represented in profile.

It is also curious that, very clearly, the hands only have four fingers. In one of the hands, it is very clear that the thumb (big toe) is shorter, which is not the case in the other. Did the painter reflect on the number of fingers on a hand? In many prehistoric cave paintings where the artist uses the stergit-technique, the hands logically have five fingers.

PYRAMIDS OF GIZA (KHEOPS GREAT PYRAMID)

There are many pyramids that we find in Egypt, of which the most important and imposing are those of Kheops, Khefren and Mykerinos (The three great pyramids that we see here)

More than because of works of art, we must consider the pyramids of Egypt for their grandeur. They are tombs built around 2,500 BC. to last forever and they have achieved it.

It must be remembered that they are one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and a heritage of humanity. The concept of the seven wonders of the ancient world was determined by the Greeks of the Hellenistic period: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the statue of Zeus in Olympia, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Unfortunately, only the Great Pyramid of Kheops is the only one that has remained to this day. The other six wonders were destroyed for one reason or another.

The Great Pyramid of Kheops, along with that of Khefren and Mykerinos, forming the Pyramids of Giza, are located on the banks of the Nile Valley.

GREAT PYRAMID OF GUIZA

The base is 230 meters square, and the original height was 146 meters. With the disappearance of the limestone that covered it, it is currently 138 meters high.

Although we do not have specific data, it seems that around 100,000 men were needed. 2,300,000 stone blocks with an average weight of two and a half tons each were needed. There are different hypotheses about how it was built. The prevailing theories speak of a ramp, some external and some internal for others, which allowed the stone blocks to be climbed. However, today, the construction system is an enigma.

Today, it is still not known if the chamber called the king is the chamber of the pharaoh. There are three chambers discovered, two located inside the pyramid and one in the subsoil or underground chamber. The construction system of the corridors and chambers used by the Egyptians makes it very difficult to access the interior.

I remember the strong impressions I received in front of this and the other pyramids during my long journey through Egypt. Incredibly awesome! The pyramids should not be seen and admired as a work of art, as we understand art today and for centuries. The pyramids are tombs of great majesty and must be admired for their magnificence and the great enigmas they hold.

There are many theories that have appeared over the centuries about the situation of the pyramid with respect to the cardinal points and the solstices. The fact, but since there are no documents on these subjects or on their construction, we cannot accurately state their reality.

GREAT SPHINX OF GIZA

The Sphinx of Giza is a figure 72 meters long and 20 meters wide with a human head and a lion's body carved from a single block. The head measures 4 meters. Apparently it represents Pharaoh Khefren. It was carved in situ, from a stone mound that was in the same place, about 2400 years BC.

It had the function of defence. The Arabs called it "Image of Terror"

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HAGIA SOPHIA OF CONSTANTINOPLE (ISTAMBUL)

t was Justinian, the Roman emperor, who had it built in the sixth century. Originally, it was an Orthodox church, now it is a mosque.

A large-scale work, one of its characteristics is the large dome resting on shells (semi-domes). It must be considered as one of the great examples of religious architecture.

The dome with its gallery of uninterrupted arcades of 40 windows allows light to flood the polychrome interior of the basilica.

Hagia Sophia is, without a doubt, a great architectural work.

SANDRO BOTTICELLI

The birth of Venus. (278 cm x 172 cm) 1484

It is one of the most important works of the Italian Renaissance (15th century).

Glue painting on canvas. Glue paint is made with a binder (rabbit glue, extracted from rabbit skins) and pigments.

Venus was the Roman goddess of love and fertility.

In this painting, Botticelli represents the figure of the celestial Venus (left) and the earthly one (right), with the mythological figure emerging from a shell, representing her birth.

The painting's chromaticism, dark on the right and left, gives a lot of brightness to the central part with the figure of Venus.

Observe, likewise, the movement of all the lines, including those of Venus herself. A few straight lines (trees) and the horizon are the only ones that do not maintain any movement.

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Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is the father of modern sculpture, as he broke with all the dominant academicism of his time.

After a certain naturalism in his first works, he soon reached a personal style. His figures, apart from the heads and portraits, always show a strong anatomical study both in the female figures and, above all, in the male ones.

Rodin also worked with marble, but he did it more with bronze.

Notice how it highlights the body anatomy of this sculpture.

Rodin made many versions of the thinker. The one we see here is in front of the Rodin museum in Paris.

Auguste Rodin's The Thinker is one of the most famous sculptures in art history. It is a bronze work made over many years. If we let our imagination run free, we can consider the thinker as a tortured, free-spirited being.

Metaphysical painting is an artistic movement that arose in Italy which, with the image, sought to achieve a dreamlike atmosphere through the unconscious.

Despite the representation of images, the metaphysical painters sought to explore the subconscious with the juxtaposition of objects with no relation to formal appearance. Metaphysical painting tried to embody something far from reality: the dream through the subconscious.

In addition to Giorgio de Chirico, other metaphysical painters were Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi.

This artistic movement converged in Dadaism and Surrealism.

This work represents an architectural half-environment with the Belvedere Apollo sculpture, a surgeon's glove, a train engine in the background, a cloud and a ball. A total of seven objects with no physical relationship between them. This work and all the others considered metaphysical can have as many interpretations as there are viewers.

C'è più mistero nell'ombra di un uomo che cammina in una giornata di sole che in tutte le religioni del mondo.

Giorgio de Chirico

The Song of Love / Oil on canvas / 59 cm x 79 cm.

RENÉ MAGRITTE

René Magritte was a surrealist painter with strong intellectual connotations.

If I asked: What is this? Many answers would be: This is a pipe. And I would answer: This is not a pipe. If it was a pipe, we could smoke it, and it is clear that we cannot smoke it. And if you asked, what is this then? I would answer this is the image of a pipe.

The image is not the object. The image is a language that allows us to perceive the shape of the reality of the object without being the object. Image replaces reality.

This is a mental system that Magritte makes use of in this work. The viewer should not be puzzled by the object-image duality but accept it as a simple reality.

We should not look for purely aesthetic values ??in this work.

In 1982, I created a painting from the series called "autobiography into image" in which I made use of the dialectic "the image is not the object" of René Magritte's painting.

This series was composed without previous projects. The construction of the paintings and their compositions was based on purely aesthetic values.

Click the following link to see the entire series:

www.rodríguez-amat/a-i-eng.html

THE SAGRADA FAMÍLIA

ANTONI GAUDí (1852 - 1926)

Originally, the temple, called expiatory, was commissioned to different architects before Antoni Gaudí took on the project in 1883. It was in 1891 when work began on the Nativity façade. The works were stopped for a long time until in 1944 it was resumed based on Gaudí's projects, thanks to the sketches, models and drawings left by the architect.

The Sagrada Família, in addition to the crypt, is made up of three facades (Birth, Passion and Death), two of which are already finished and the third still to be built. Each of these façades is composed of three towers, symbolizing the apostles. In addition to the facades, there is the tower of Mary and the four towers of the evangelists (Mark, Matthew, Luke and John), each of which reaches a height of 135 meters. The central tower (Jesus tower) is due to be completed in 2025 and will reach a total height of 172 meters.

At first, the construction works were financed by public collection. Personally, I remember how in the fifties, once a year, a fundraiser was held for its construction. Today, the continuation of the construction is financed thanks to the millions of visitors.

Passion façade with sculptures by Josep Maria Subirachs

vFaçade of the Nativity

Detail of sculptures on the Nativity façade

The sculptures on the Nativity façade were made by means of plaster molding of objects, animals or plants, a technique already used by the Greeks.

Interior view of the temple.

The inner vault.

The inclined columns and, from a capital in the form of a knot, other columns emerge forming trees. On these columns rest parabolic arches that bear the weight of the vaults.

The four columns of the transept are dedicated to the evangelists, and the other twelve to the apostles. Gaudí used a lot of symbols in the temple.

According to Gaudí himself, he tested the structure of the vaults of the Sagrada Família in Colonia Güell. Without this essay, he said, I would not have dared to adopt her for the temple.

The absolute dedication of a lifetime allows me, today even more, to enjoy the magnificent world of art.

Years of teaching have developed in me the pleasure of expressing my thoughts.

I have presented ten works taken from the wonderful world of art and made some comments about the different works. I hope and wish that they were to your liking and that you got a good profit from them.