Submitted by Patrick Reyes on the 2017 summer session program in Granada, Spain sponsored by the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures…
When Andalucia speaks, it speaks with the weight of ages. Here, the different cultures and civilizations of the Mediterranean collided, shared space and traded ideas. Indeed, Al-Andalus was a font of the sort of knowledge and progress that still rings true to this day. In Granada, one can see how those worlds collided. In the Alhambra, we see how Islamic art and architecture flourished and expressed their desire to understand the ways of the world. Though they forbade themselves from depicting humans and animals, they instead chose to explore mathematical systems and geometric patterns, finding meaning in the math behind it all. They associated such systems with the workings of nature and the world. The patterns in flowers. The movement of the stars. All of these things were of import to them. Through math in art, they sought meaning in the world.
I also find this theme in the Catholic buildings – large grand structures, ornately designed and meticulously constructed. The belief was that these buildings had to be big in order to be closer to God. On my street alone, there stand a monastery, a basilica and two more churches to boot. Church bells in the towers ring out regularly and grand images of holy people fill these edifices. Two vastly different worlds, with a history that was forever changed after 1492, yet they sought the same thing in their art and expression. One would think that their works wouldn’t mix with one another. But indeed, Granada would not be the city it is without such a mix. Its charm and its wisdom lies in the fact that its history is marked by different eras, different visitors, different owners. Different, perhaps, but united in their search for the divine.