Girl with Beautiful Legs in Plaça del Rei, Barcelona

I was trying to think of a better title for today's post. We were standing on Plaza del Rey waiting for the steps to empty and sit for a group photo during Europe Photobloggers Meetup 2008. A man, obviously her partner, was taking pictures. We were camera in hand, more than 30 considering how many we were and some of us started shooting over the man's shoulder.

To keep her identity unknown I decided to include this one with her head turned up. So I reckon all the attention deviates to her beautiful dress and legs. I have to say that this subject made me recall some interesting comments under another photo including legs at Chromasia. We were having an argument on whether a picture of just women's legs is somewhat degrading. Of course I haven't changed my mind. Legs are just legs and if beautiful they are to be admired.

The Gargoyles of Death, Plaza del Rey, Barcelona

Half-bred uncanny creatures, stalking from above and ominously spitting rivers of water as if announcing the downfall of man and the arrival of an ignote, unfathomed gloomy world. 

Sunday morning on your way to church. A long, long time ago. You have a sudden urge to pray. Things are not going too well lately. Mysterious deaths scamper through the city. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people are doomed by now and nobody knows why. Is it God's wrath? Is it one of the seven plagues? 

Some say it comes in the air or that it dwells in the pestilent waters of the outskirts. Almighty God! What is that! A filthy rat!. Get out of my way, you abominable evil creature. I wonder why there are so many. Stop looking at me, you hideous gargoyles...

In 1589 1/4 of the population in Barcelona, 12.000 to 13.000 approximately, succumbed to bubonic plague. Here is Plaça del Rei, the place where the gargoyles are.

The Art Nouveau Lamp in Barcelona, Europe

Decorative arts, architecture and other forms of artistic expression lived an authentic ecclosion by the end of XIX and the first years of XX c. in Catalonia as part of a cultural and political movement known as Renaixença which was spurred by the new spirit of the wealthy local bourgeoisie and their quest for industrial expansion, the influence of Paris and other industrialized European countries as the new model to follow in opposition to the retrograde, stale Castilian yoke. The cultural side of this renaissance, this art nouveau and the way it manifested in Catalonia is called Modernisme. A lamp was just a lamp but all of sudden there was an urge for innovation and new trends, an outburst of creativity that said hey this is our art, it is Catalan, we borrowed some elements from the most modern and fashion countries in Europe and Asia, we improved it and lifted it to the category of divine, we are educated, passionate for art, powerful and basically we don't need your Royal Majesties anymore, in fact we never did. Of course this is history in a very personal and simplified way. Here is another modernist lamp.

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