If you could paint your current mood onto a canvas, what would that painting look like? What would it depict?
I’m these days living in the middle of the fiesta of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain. The fiesta of the running of the bulls. The fiesta that Ernest Hemingway described in this quote:
“The fiesta was really started. It kept up day and night for seven days. The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta. All during the fiesta you had the feeling even when it was quiet, that you had to shout any remark to make it heard. It was the same feeling about any action. It was a fiesta and it went on for seven days.”
Everybody goes out clothed in white and red, all day in the streets, dancing and singing and drinking, going to see the running of the bulls early in the morning and the corrida in the afternoon, dancing with the ancient giant puppets for the delight of the kids during the day, or seeing the fireworks at night. And then dancing and drinking all the night. What would I paint? Maybe a white and red canvas because is what I have these days around me. Even I wear white pants, a white t-shirt and my red scarf like everybody does, despite I’m mostly at home because of my family obligations and I’m not in a mood for fiesta. I don’t like bullfighting and the running of the bulls scares me to death. I enjoy music in the streets during the day but I don’t like constant noise. I actually painted a watercolour of the event of the beginning of the fiesta. You can see a fragment above. This would be my painting for today.
Otherwise I would paint dark clouds heavy with rain over a landscape full of menacing obstacles. Grey and brown are the dominant colours. Big rocks impossible to climb are blocking the paths. In the horizon there are bright colours. The sun is shining and all seems peaceful and beautiful, but there is no apparent way to reach that place.
2 thoughts on “Fiesta in red and white”