Notebooks of Art and Photography. Selection # 9
There are hardly any vestiges of that Visigothic Spain that definitively collapsed in the year 711, when the Muslims penetrated the Iberian Peninsula and massacred the armies of King Rodrigo in the famous battle of the Guadalete River.
Even of this, the last of the Visigothic dynasty, there are scabrous legends, who want to see in him a perverse sovereign, who was characterized by belonging to a warrior line that frequently carried out acts of treason and where his nobles used to be staunch to the participation in conspiracies, given his irrepressible obsession with power.
Far from this socio-political aspect and possibly alien to the fantasy displayed by other architectures that would later be introduced in Spain, the few testimonies that have survived to our days, do not leave behind a certain mysterious charm.
Based on the Greek cross plan –the four equal sides- and basilical shape, the Visigothic churches are a sensory call to attention towards that eternal struggle between light and darkness, which metaphorically could be said to represent the thinking of high medieval man.
The darkness that reigned in its interior was barely dissipated by the weak rays of light that penetrated through its windows, which in many cases consisted of little more than loopholes, which offered a truly gloomy appearance, which could not go unnoticed by the superstitious. mentality of a congregation always shy of the fear of the wrath of God.
What does not mean, obviously, so that externally and seen as a whole, they can be considered as compact buildings, not lacking in beauty, to which their builders also applied the concepts of Sacred Geometry, since it has been verified that they knew the number golden.
Today, they constitute a fascinating embers of what could well be defined as a lost world: that of that Hispania that succeeded none other than the Western Roman Empire.
NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property and therefore are subject to my Copyright.
Qué maravilla de fotos y de imágenes, de figuras esculpidas, de construcciones, son realmente impresionantes y hablan con silencio y belleza de una época que sigue emanando su aroma en nuestros días, un gran abrazo amigo Juancar.
Muchas gracias por tu inestimable comentario, mi estimado amigo. En efecto, esa época, lejana y prácticamente olvidada en los charcos de la Historia, todavía nos deja un agradable sabor de boca, siquiera sea contemplando la belleza de sus vestigios. Un abrazo
el poder y las guerras siempre han existido y existirán, algunas personas dicen que hay mucha maldad actualmente, yo respondo que siempre ha existido, ahora las personas matan con un arma de fuego, en tiempos pasados era más cruel con espadas, cuchillos, y en el futuro será con armas biológicas, bueno esta última para mí posee misericordia ya que será rápido si lo hacen bien, si no estaremos como en la actualidad con el covid 19, bien pensado, mal ejecutado.
Bueno, como decía Graham Greene, el poder y la gloria. Parece que no existe nada, aparte de eso, para las élites que dominan el mundo. Todo lo demás, en el fondo, es simple especulación.