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What are these guys up to?
17 responses to “¿Qué pasa?”
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the composition reminds me a little of rodin’s burghers of calais.
i wonder what’s the story behind this one…
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To me, it looks like a pope or a clergyman with the labor class at his right (the man on his knees, like begging, and the other at his side like inquiring) and the higher class that the left, a merchant or a feudal lord, perhaps a member of the bourgeoisie ( who served with monetary favors to the clergy)… I think the sculpture may represent a social moment in time of Spain, perhaps the medieval times, next to the French Revolution or right after… Remembering that the monarchy in Spain still exists and that it acted as the hinge in between these social classes (the poor / the workers, the bourgeois / feudal lords / merchants and the noblesse / the clergymen) ????
¿Qué onda? =)
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superb analysis gg, even if wrong! 🙂 i’m afraid i was drawn to much more sordid conclusions, inappropriately enough :
(see my 18-month-old tags / remark)
it’s cool to catch sight of something like this in a thumbnail on the contacts page, which is only very vaguely recognisable, and then realise that you have also snapped it! i’m glad we sampled some of the same delights of this beautiful city 🙂
It’s the Monument to the Martyrs of 1809 (Napoleonic Wars) by Josep Llimona. This page has more detail in Catalan. Quick English description here.
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Biotron, thanks for the link indeed. And glad you liked the interpretation. I see for the link that at least I was right in regard to the epoch… it´s interesting how the postures of the characters can speak so loudly while being static at the same time.
Now, talking about the interesing part… your sordid, inappropriate conclusions… LOL! Well, I had my own "inappropriation" too… let me confess…
I actually saw the guy on his knees doing the priest a, say, "service" and the other looking mischievously to the priest like saying "haha… so this is what you do in reality, eh?" while the other high class guy looks to the horizon in a "See no evil" fashion, and the last guy at the bottom looks like on one knee praying, asking for forgiveness for the ashaming thing he is witness of…
BUT i didn´t think it was proper to say that… so I only talked about medieval history. 😛
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Funny thing – I got emails from people who also saw a sordid scene, but hesitated to comment…
I wonder how many people reacted the same.
It reminds me of our earlier discussion on innocence and this drawing by Sandro Del-Prete.
At an exhibit at the University of Cambridge, children generally see dolphins, and adults look shocked and respond "What Dolphins?"
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yeah – that is classic, as are the comments in the previous discussion 🙂 i really could not see dolphins for ages when first viewing this picture. apart from other such dual paintings, it reminds me of these things :
1) when i was very young, i used to stare upward a lot, at times looking at bumps (intentional design, like irregular bubblewrap) on the wallpaper covering my ceiling. often, rather than appearing convex, the shadows defining their edge would invert and i would be seeing concave dimples. try as i might, it would always be hard to reassert the convex bump without looking away for some time.
2) similarly, when in the family Volvo, i used to look at its "ceiling" which was covered in regular tiny holes. i would "zone out" and stare through them in order to get an illusory sense of depth, or cross my eyes and achieve the same effect.
3) when stereograms were all the rage in the early 90s, many people i knew simply refused to believe there was anything other than a repetitive pattern there – including me, despite my juvenile "skills". after much effort of starting close and pulling back to achieve the necessary focus, i eventually succeeded and went on to reach the point where i could stare through one on a wall several metres away and read the stereo image clearly. (a very disconcerting feeling in a public space)
4) Ecco on the Sega Megadrive
5) John C. Lilly in his wonderful Hawaiian shirt on Ken Campbell’s "Brainspotting" (whose daughter Daisy, coincidentally, i first met just around the corner from where the original photo on this page was taken)
shall i get my coat?
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This memorial to the victims of Napoleon was apparently inaugurated in 1941 by Franco’s nationalist government. A three-dimensional Guernica, if you will.
Now, are there in Barcelona any sculptures commemorating the victims of the Spanish Civil War, e.g. those executed by Franco’s regime ? -
yeah, those magic eye stereograms were great…i wonder what ever happened to them…just died out like most fads.
it was funny though walking down the street and seeing people just standing still, completely mesmerised by something.
(kinda like when you see people talking to themselves in public places and realise later that they had a very well hidden bluetooth headset:)
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I have no time now to read all of the above except your own comment (Steve) but I will say that I see the innocent message of the statues.
will read all at another time.
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wow, that took a few minutes of focusing and defocusing my eyes before i realized that i didn’t have to in order to see the dolphins.
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Definitely looks sordid from the angle Steve snapped it… Not like the caption "What are these guys up to?" helped.. 😉
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