Still Life: Wild Partridge Showcase, La Boqueria Market, Barcelona

Like a painting depicting hunting trophies or a still life portraying dead animals, specially those of hares and birds, appeared before my eyes, imbued with a ghostly bluish-yellowish light, the wild game stand in La Boqueria market. From the mixture of species on display, I cropped this rack of wild partridges so you could take a good peek at the strange artistic beauty that inspired painters in the past, at that mysterious blend of nature, food, life and death evoked with traditional austerity in many Spanish bodegones where dead animals hung from a hook waiting to be skinned and free of any banquet luxury or adornment so often present in similar paintings from other countries in Baroque times. I know this is just a picture of dead wild partridges and you may not find it artistic at all but I wanted you to think about this aspect of painting and the peculiar relationship between art, men and dead animals regarded as something aesthetic.

Mammoth At Large - Park de la Ciutadella, Barcelona

Beware of the mammoth! Yes, a mammoth is at large somewhere amidst the fountains, the promenades, the pavilions in Parc de la Ciutadella, Barcelona. Don't say I didn't warn you when you step on the glade and there's no one but you and the beast. Luckily I had time to fire the flash of my camera and sneaked away in the bush. You may not be that fortunate. Now being a little more serious, let me tell you that this stone mammoth was built based upon a model by sculptor Miquel Dalmau and as part of an initiative of Norbert Font i Sagué (1874-1910), writer, geologist and renown speleologist. Thanks to Norbert Font speleology was first introduced in Catalonia.

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Water Jug with Children, Parc de la Ciutadella, Barcelona

Sometimes a work of art is so aesthetically breathtaking that it would be a sacrilege to step away without going round to take a peek from the opposite side. This image is dedicated to all those who bother looking from another perspective for the sake of knowledge, for the sake of art. Check my first post about the Water Jug with Children for details.