I have a longing to wander amongst wild tangles of architectural styles - sometimes, in London, you see a splendid brutalist tower of glass and avarice next to a Wren church - my heart lifts at this, as it also does to the sight of curving avenues of Victorian villas, each slate or tiled roof shielding poignant secrets -
When I stroll through a town or city, I want to feel something - I want to open my soul to the stories within the buildings -
In Split, every stroll was a delight - I could look up, to see a sphinx, crouching in the sunshine, not far from the Cathedral - I could see the white columns and arches of a colonnade, dating from Roman times - there, next to the red awning of a pavement cafe, was the stone head of a snarling beast -
What was going on between those two figures, their heads and shoulders carved into that ancient wall? Was that an apple, or a ball, being held up by the man, with his twisted lips and grotesque nose? Who was the woman, with her vulnerable neck?
Then there were the alleyways, wonderful ravines between reefs of dark stone - overhead, baulks of timber supported venerable masonry -
I remembered Piranesi's drawings of imaginary prisons - if I half closed my eyes, then I might imagine myself wandering within those dreamscapes -
No comments:
Post a Comment