The SeaShore
During a dinner party at Maria Jose’s house (my host mother) with some of her Spanish friends we ate our dessert of candied pears and ice cream. The whole dinner was rather stressful for me considering my Spanish skills were incredibly minimal. I tried to keep up with the conversation, but every now and then my mind would wonder and I would zone out. One of her friends, the name of which I sadly cannot remember pointed out a painting that Maria Jose had hung above the dinner table in her dining room. I had never noticed the painting before considering Maria Jose had a sizable art collection so it was easy to glance over them. I didn’t want to be rude by leaving the table or checking my phone even though I understood very minimal of the conversation so I just stared at the painting for a while and took it in. The image was of a sunken ship in a restless ocean, a city in the nearby mountains, and a gorgeous ancient structure with a woman standing high on the seashore as the man approached from the sea. I loved the open ended aspect of it as my mind would guess things like “why did his ship sink? Is that boat in the distance looking for him? Was she expecting him or are they strangers? My mind wondered about this image for some time after CoronaVirus began running rapid and it suddenly became urgent for us to leave the country.
I thought about the painting for a long time even after leaving Spain and returning to my parents farm in Fort Morgan Colorado with some of my friends from the ICS program. I began thinking about how it reminded me of this other piece of artwork that I had seen in my parents' apartment of Sirens who were emerging from the sea to seduce the men on shore. I began thinking about how a simple painting of a man emerging from the sea and approaching the shore could be seen so positively as if it were this beautiful love story. However, if it was a woman emerging from the sea, she is seen as an evil seducer attempting to cause harm to the shore. It made me think about how in some of the churches and cathedrals we visited in Spain, the biblical artwork on the walls typically displayed women in 2 forms: the holy virgin Mary, or promiscuous and filled with sin. It made me think about how our perspective of things, in this case specifically women, is the entire reason why art is interesting. Art is unique to each viewer due to their unique perspectives.
The painting at Maria Jose’s continued to stick with me which encouraged me to try to recreate it. And so I decided to paint Maria Jose’s artwork, with a twist. I decided to place the women closer to the boat on the shore and placing the man higher up on the shore, changing the story of the painting a little bit and encouraging a different, maybe more modern storyline to the painting. I attempted to recreate the image in as close to the original as I could with my minor adjustment of switching the man and the woman.
I began asking my family what they thought of the painting after it was finished. It started out as simple curiosity but it quickly became the reason I chose to do this assignment as my final project for this class. Every single person I asked “what is the story behind this painting” all stated that it was the man who came from the sea and not the woman. My dad stated that he believed: “It looks like he came ashore to meet his long lost love” despite the fact that clearly he is standing on higher ground in the image. My mother believed: “He has come to her from the sea to tell her bad news”. My mind began wondering how could this be their conclusions of the painting even though I had intentionally switched the positions of the people to imply that it was the women coming from the shore. This is where I gathered an awesome conclusion about humanity, about people, about perspective and definitely about Spain: The mind sees what it wants to see.
We have studied a vast amount of Spanish, history, culture, language and society. I have learned more during my semester abroad than I could have hoped to learn in any other class. During our class we learned about the vast amount of perspectives people have of Spain and Spanish culture. We learned about the harsh perspective the Jewish people might have regarding Spain due to the expulsion of their people/beliefs during the Spanish Inquisition. We learned about the pride Spanish Christians might have toward their country and their religion as they march the streets of Semana Santos with extreme precision practice and expertise. We learned about the perspective Morisco’s or the Islamic people might have of Spain as a place where there people used to rule, leaving behind stunning pieces of architecture. The perspectives of the historically un-included gypsy people and the sexualization of their culture. We learned about the masculine pride of the Spanish people and the strength they have created within the nation. We learned about the importance of the Spanish mothers in Spain as my host mother (Maria Jose) was the center of her family and their lives. And I even learned a great deal about my own perspectives of the nation, coming from a place where all of my knowledge of Spain was fueled by touristic marketing campaigns.
Spain is the accumulation of all of these perspectives. Many of these are stereotypes that have been consumed by people for generations. These perspectives have been perpetuating themselves for years and years and have consumed parts of the mind that are so deep and difficult to control that it is hard to see anything else. Just like in my painting, even though the intention was to create a piece of feminist art in which women can be seen in equivalent roles as men was still not portrayed to the viewer due to these perspectives that have established themselves in the mind.
After I thought about that and about how deeply these perspectives can root themselves in people I began wondering how they can be removed (if at all). How can a person become truly unbiased and therefore have the ability to truly analyze a culture or a nation? Although, I am not denying that I am not filled with my own biases, I did begin realizing how much my perspectives of Spain and Spaniards changed after I was given the opportunity to experience the culture first hand. The combination of the classes that I took at ICS as well as the real life experiences completely revolutionized my opinions of the nation.
Spain is an incredible nation filled with some of the most complex history of nearly any nation. The amount of cultures, religions, races and people that all made their place in Spain is truly astounding. The reason Spain is such an incredible country is because of its ability to thrive in spite of all of the above conflicts. All of these conflicts, coexistences, grudges, passions, hatreds and love are what makes Spain. I believe that it is one of the core reasons as to why Spain is filled with a large history of celebrated art pieces in movies, dance, music, painting and more. The combination of all of these perspectives, histories and cultures has created something truly unique and wonderful.
But, who knows, the mind only sees what it wants to see.
My Dad’s Perspective: the two of them were separated by a long journey and they are reconnecting, maybe the place doesn’t even exist anymore and it's from a different time. They are happy to see each other after so long. Neither looks like a sailor, she looks wealthy, he was looking out of the ocean. The mountains remind me of Hawaii mountains. It looks like he just came from the sea.
My Mom’s Perspective: there was a shipwreck, he's coming to her to tell her bad news, it’s an ancient city; no one lives here anymore. It's melancholy and moody.