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The Nasrid Comares Palace Moorish Baths were the stimulus for Hammam Baths: Floating. Their star shaped, top-lit domes are entered from the galleried archways of the Court of the Myrtles, which contains a large pool and shallow basins at either end. Ritualised bathing was both an essential and intentionally pleasurable part of daily life of the Nasrid Court. Images of stages one to three highlight a detail of the development of the final composition. The intense colour contrasts in stage one have been transformed in stage two into more subdued hues of blue-greys, ochres and pinks. In stage three compositional devices suggest enclosed spaces. In the final composition, water, architecture and foliage dissolve and re-emerge as a more mysterious space of mirrored dancing light and colour depths.
I am currently working on a collaborative project Diverse Encounters begun in 2008, which combines music and visual compositions. This has taken the form of an open interactive journey with composer and nephew Peter Seabourne in which we share our creative responses to the Alhambra. His piano piece
Blue Secrets, Evening relates directly to the painting Hammam Baths: Floating.
In a word, the true aesthetic of Granada is the aesthetic of the diminutive, of tiny
things, and her true creations are the little chamber, the mirador of lovely, small
proportions, the small garden or statue.
- Federico García Lorca, A Season in Granada
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