Alhambra's Lion Garden, Rich Hall & Bosch's Earthly Delights

Alhambra's Lion Garden: A Historical Jewel

The most important and famous gardens of the Alhambra are those of the Court of the Lions. For those who admire its source, it's important to note that, in addition to Christian amendments, the oldest part of this source originated from the palace of the Jewish vizier Ibn Nagrela in the eleventh century. It was later used in period pieces of Muhammad V in the fourteenth century. The scheme is based on perimeter rooms and galleries that form a cloister, whose short sides feature complex structures projecting pavilions with columns. Four fountains are placed, skimming over the yard, while four others are located in the halls of the short sides and in the halls, circulating water around a raised central fountain.

Rich Hall: A Palace of Opulence

The Rich Hall is the most significant part of the palace. It served as the caliphs' reception area for official visitors, impressing them with the wealth on display. It is a quadrangular building with three naves, separated by horseshoe arches resting on columns. This echoes the construction principles of the mosque, using the same two-color arches in red-brick and white marble, along with vegetal and epigraphic decoration made in plaster boards. The room is covered with a flat roof. Before the garden was divided into four parts, Rich Hall featured a pavilion at the center surrounded by a pond, clearly inspired by Persian gardens.

Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights

The Garden of Earthly Delights:

• Author: Bosch
• Date: 1503-04
• Museum: Museo del Prado
• Features: 220 x 195 cm
• Material: Oil on board
• Style: Flemish

This triptych, by the Netherlandish artist Bosch, is remarkably unique for its time and beyond. When closed, it depicts scenes from Genesis, the creation of the vegetable world, and the origin of life. When open, the left door shows Paradise, Hell is on the right, and the center panel displays varied forms of sensuality, representing earthly life. Read from beginning to end, it tells the story of mankind's downfall, without the possibility of redemption, as there are no divine figures of Christ or Mary, nor the blessed chosen to live in God's grace after the final judgment.

Bosch's worlds have little to do with reality or human understanding. He is one of the first geniuses in art history to portray dream-like components that transcend conscious reality. Fantasy, humor, and vitriolic criticism saturate the raw image of man, who plunges into hell with every action. Bosch's thorough technique is directly related to the painting of his time and progress with oil painting.

Rogier van der Weyden's The Descent

The Descent: The Descent of Christ from the cross is a magnificent work by Rogier van der Weyden, who planned it to translate paint schemes of German and Flemish altarpieces sculptures of that time. These pose a box usually narrow space in which are placed on how the characters carved frieze, front and adjusted the low background are given. This approach is the same as noted in Van der Weyden Descent: all figures are distributed in the foreground, juxtaposed but ensuring that no concealed from the others. The evocation of the sculptural style and volume modeling get the bodies, which is seen so prominently in the neck of the woman who is on the far right of the composition.

The figures, ten of them are dead Christ, Mary, St. John and the holy men and women, including Mary Magdalene. They have beautiful clothes, whose textures can differentiate velvets, silks, damask, etc.. It is also a characteristic of art flamenco it to highlight the quality of the materials listed. The whole bottom is covered with delicious layers of gold leaf, and abundance of blue and green pigments are from grinding semi-precious stones. The gold background, and a display of wealth, it prevents the viewer deeply into something else than the scene. The first of Coxcie is currently hanging on the walls of El Escorial. The original table of the Descent is in the Museo del Prado since 1939.