Tribute to the picture “The Lady of Shalott” , by John William Waterhouse (1888) and inspired by “Last Spring” (“Two Elegiac Melodies”,Op.34) by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907).

Inspired by the Adagio Assai, second movement of the “Concert for Piano and Orchestra in Sol+” (1929/1931) by Maurice Ravel, one of the most famous slow tempo musical pieces in the story of music.

The deep and strange character of its beauty, the impressionistic airs, its cadences and the dominant preciosity of the extensive movement, are represented, respectively, in the figure of the numb young woman, her blue dress resolved in strokes, the curved and decreasing curves that they frame “the dream raft” and the floral and gray fabric of the floor.

The lunar light, teh intense chiaroscuro, the fall of the fabrics and the chromatic range, in wich blue, violet and gray predomínate, evoke the thought, the beautiful evolution of a melody that seems written to develop ideas.

Inspired by the Ricercar a 6 of “The Musical Offering” by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1079, year 1747), this work is an allegory of the creative process and in itself a tribute to Music.

With Bach’s piece as a reference –both its history and its transcendence, its beauty and its harmonies-, the work recreates, through abstractions and contrasts of color, the sensory stimulation that Music produces when Heard, as well as the privacy of the artistic creation is represented by the figure of the young woman and the intímate space that surrounds it; his gesture symbolizes the transit of invention and personal feeling to the outside world.

The figure of Annelies Marie Frank (Frankfurt, June 12, 1929 – Bergen Belsen, Mars, 1945), of jewish descent, constitutes a universal symbol of the fight against racism and intolerance. Although he was born and died in Germany, it was in Amsterdam (Holland) where he developed most of his scarce fifteen years. During the period between July 1942 and August 1944, fleeing the threat of the Nazis, Anne, her family and four more people lived hidden in the annex of the building that housed his father’s company. There she wrote the three notebooks that make up his famous “Diary of Anne Frank” (guarded by Miep Gies and edited by his father, Otto, sole survivor of the family, in 1947), a book she dreamed about with the title “The House Behind” and that in less than a decade reached universality. In their experiences, descriptions and desires translates the gestation of a special charism just as in their doubts and questions lies the sign of hope.

This portrait is based on pictures of Anne Frank. It is a tribute to his memory and to the millions of Jews who knew the infra humanity of the Holocaust.

Latin inscription: “Victoria initium certamini novis” (“Victory is the beginning of a new fight”).

Taking as a reference Rafael de Sanzio and Rogier Van Der Weyden’s aesthetic legacies, this allegory depicts the fragility of the great dreams (symbolized by the glass cup) and the air of happiness and harmony that accompanies the signs of good luck.

Inspired on “Eternal Source of Light Divine”, musical piece composed by G.F. Handel (1712) extracted from “Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne” (HWV: 74) and based on the text by Ambrose Phillips:

“Eternal source of light divine! / With double warmth thy beams display, and with distinguish’d glory shine, to add a lustre to this day”.

The concepts of eternity or glory that flow from that light Ambrose Phillips refers to are interpreted through a sculptural-looking block that emerges from the water and divides it as if it was a cascade, melting both elements, light and water, into a single one. The symbolism of a golden sun that waters nature sustains and envelops that armchair covered by a neutral-coloured cloth, upon which the figure of light is accommodated.

“Mater Vitae” (“Mother of Life”) shows, through a scene of breastfeeding, the first feelings of the human being. It is the mother who generates life and who feeds it. Her maternal love and her capacity for sacrifice are also symbolized on the golden and white tablecloth, in the centre of which appears the famous allegory of the pelican that tears its chest to feed its offspring. The brocade that surrounds that symbol contains the letters of the word “Mater” distributed in circles that evoke the four cardinal points.

Inspired by “Gnossienne no. 4” by Erik Satie.