Watercolors "step by step" album 4

 

A jacket

I have started painting a white jacket. I have decided to repeat the form of some puppets that carry
 another one.

My mother prayed the rosary, some people say their "mantras"...

I read that the word "mantra" comes from sanskrit: "man", that means "mind", and "tra", that means "protection" and "instrument" too. Mantras are remedies to protect our mind from thoughts and actions improductive cycles. Besides their beneficial vibrational aspects, it is thought that they help the mind focus and relax. By focusing on sound repetition, most thoughts vanish little by little, until the mind becomes clean and quiet.

I'm going to photograph the different steps as I go on:

A fresco for Laura

Daphne turned into Laura...

Bernini

"A Dafne ya los brazos le crecían,

y en luengos ramos vueltos se mostraban;

en verdes hojas vi que se tornaban

los cabellos que el oro escurecían.

De áspera corteza se cubrían

los tirnos miembros, que aún bullendo estaban:

los blancos pies en tierra se hincaban,

y en retorcida raíces se volvían.

Aquel que fue la causa de tal daño,

a fuerza de llorar, crecer hacía

el árbol que con lágrimas regaba.

¡O miserable estado, oh mal tamaño!

¡Qe con lloralla cresca cada día

la causa y la razón por que lloraba!"

Garcilaso de la Vega

                 

                                                                                                                                     

Tiepolo

Laura lives in La Rioja. She likes dancing as well as Laurel Street (which is Bacco's street in the wine region).

Laurel Street. La Rioja.

Apollo vs. Dionysius

Next summer I'm going to paint a fresco for her. She would like a mandala, I thought I would do something related to music and the first image that came to my mind was the Carafa Chapel.

Filippino Lippi

For the fresco we have a circular space, 60 cm in diameter.

  

Daphne's arms form a laurel wreath and Apollo has dreadlocks resembling  the sun's rays.

Apollo, the god of beauty and sun, doesn't succeed in catching up with Laura, because she's "lunar", she has a cheerfulness and a mistery that escape the intellect. Apollo desires her, but she wins him out (winner's laurel) and she doesn't let him grab her, ans so, they are chasing forever because he's a god and she's a nymph.

The musicians form the shape of the laurel wreath too.

Laura dancing:

Shiva

The guitarist and the percussionist are"chasing after" a good song. Sketches:

I have found this Parmigianino drawing, "Venus, Mars and Vulcan" of the National Gallery of Parma, according to D. Arasse thinker's interpretation, the scene is described in an allegorical way: Vulcan's look and gesture identify him with the artist, intellectually concentrated on the very moment of the invention; the breath of wind moving the blacksmith's hair and beard, as well as the veil wrapping the lovers, is that of the artistic ispiration, explicitly compared to sexual pulsion.

Apollo is bending like his characteristic bow (and like bullfighters too).

And Daphne - Laura's arms look like a bull's horns and the moon too.

Apollo y Daphne. Capodimonte museum.

Ruven Afanador

Diane (School of Fontainebleau, detail)

The circle has changed into an egg.

"MANDALA" is a word coming from sanskrit, that means diagram or symbolic representation of the macrocosm and the microcosm used in buddhism as well as in hinduism.

Most cultures have mandalic and mandaloid configurations.

The "mandorla" of the medieval christian art, some labyrinths on the floor and the rose windows of the gothic churches, the diagrams of the indian people, etc.

This universality of the mandalas made Jung consider them as likely expressions of the  "collective unconsious".

The lyre, the "diana" (that in spanish means "target "too), the paintbrushes...

Apollo y Daphne

Daphne and the lyre. The bow and the laurel.

The sun and the moon.

The bull and the bullfighter. The "yin" and the "yang". The egg and the laurel wreath.

The fresco:

the spiral and the wreath.