Thursday, November 26, 2009

Life among the stones / A vida entre as pedras


It's something I don't cease to admire: Mountains made of rock, with more stones than grass, and yet some people could turn parts of such a harsh territory into a terrain of culture and a place to live. Each of the stones that make up the walls, houses and other buildings, often without any mortar, is one of a kind, a monument of effort, a work of art embellished by time, a planet for thousands of tiny beings. It's one of the things that I most like to paint - on the paper, of course, not painting the stones themselves!
É algo que não cesso de admirar: Montanhas feitas de rocha, com mais calhaus do que ervas, e no entanto houve quem conseguisse transformar partes de tão agreste território em terreno de cultivo e lugar para viver. Cada uma das pedras que compõem os muros, as casas e demais construções, muitas vezes sem qualquer argamassa, é um exemplar único, monumento de esforço, uma obra de arte embelezada pelo passar do tempo, um planeta para milhares de minúsculos seres. É das coisas que mais me agrada pintar – no papel, claro, não as próprias pedras!
Fabriano cold pressed 7"x 5" - 90lb (18cm x 12cm - 200g/m2) paper
Etsy shop: Click here / Loja Etsy: Clique aqui

2 comments:

Keith Tilley said...

I find that stone buildings always seem to be part of the landscape in a way that brick or concrete ones don't. I expect that it would be the same for mud buildings. They seem to be connected to the ground they're standing on.

Paulo J. Mendes said...

I agree, Keith. Stone and earth, two of the traditional building materials in my country - one in the north and the other in the south - are being often replaced by concrete and brick in many places, and these look always invasive and out of place, even when painted or disguised with a "typical" look.