JaZzArt en València

Venga, yo digo, y siempre he dicho que el arte es la búsqueda y creo que por ahí he dejado caer que busco. Pero si tu estas de acuerdo conmigo, y también piensas que el arte es la búsqueda, dime ¿Qué buscas tú?

Yo busco la espiritualidad…

GRACIAS

Time, for most people, is something that is measured by a clock; the days by a calendar; the weeks by the comings and goings to work; and the years by the greying of their hair. Time has become our boss, observed, respected, and completely indispensable…even if it is implacable…for everything depends on it. We assert that we live only because we have, or rather, because time has passed by and through and we have had a life. Furthermore, we are convinced that time moves in a straight line, always forward, towards what we call the future, and that what is left behind, the past, no longer exists.

But what if I told you that all of that is malarkey? What would you think if I told you that time does not exist? Did you know that the concept of time that we have is wrong, corrupted, and misunderstood? Oh, you didn’t know? Well, I’m going to tell you. Pay close attention to the following example.

A few years ago, I had a repeating dream. Every night I would dream the same thing, but each time the dream became longer and with more and more details. This was the dream that started it all.

The first night I saw myself as a boy of about seven years old, and my mother entrusted me to the captain of a ship with huge sails. We crossed the ocean and arrived at a port where people, who looked very different from those I was accustomed to seeing, were waiting for us. They took me gently by the hand and led me to a great city. And so ended the first dream, but as I have said, every night I dreamed the same thing again, with more details, until finally I dreamed the whole story.

Finally I realised that the story that was being shown to me in these dreams was a revelation. This is the complete dream with its interpretation: I was a child from an Egyptian family born in Israel during the reign of its fifth king, Zimri, (885 B.C.). My mother was the High Priestess of a temple dedicated to Isis located at the top of Mount Hermon, in the Golan Heights in the northern part of the Kingdom of Israel. One day a ship arrived and my mother, after a long conversation with the captain… I don’t know what they talked about… took me to the pier and told me that I would find my destiny in far away shores. She said the ship would take me there and that I would grow strong and wise and there my wisdom would be useful, and where my power would flourish.

The ship transported me to the shores of the Mayan empire, in what is now Yucatán (Mexico). I was taken to the city of Uxmal, to an altar inside a small temple located at the top of a pyramid of polished stones that shimmered in the light of the intense tropical sun of those lands. There, I was shown about the extent of the great empire, which I was to rule one day.

That was the story revealed to me in dreams as interpreted by a Peruvian shaman I knew. He said that I was the reincarnation of the wise foreign white man who had lived among the Maya. That I would first rule with strength as a great general who won great battles, conquered the enemies of the Maya, and subjugated the northern tribes, most likely the Toltecs or Aztecs. Later, I would rule with wisdom and achieved peace, along with friendship treaties and coexistence with former enemies. This led to the establishment of trade routes, which allowed both empires to prosper and grow. Peace allowed for the growth of artistic projects, scientific discoveries, and the development of mathematics, astrology, and architecture. In short, everything recognized today as the great achievements of the Maya, the Toltec and the Aztec.

Years later I decided, not because of the dream but for other reasons, to go to the city of Mérida, Yucatán. I had the opportunity to visit the historic Mayan archaeological complex called Chichén Itzá, and also Uxmal. Upon entering Chichén Itzá, the first thing one sees is the great step pyramid that dominates the entire complex with its enormity. I immediately felt something strange. Although we arrived early in the morning, my eyes saw everything in darkness and in the light of a faintly waning moon. The monuments were gray or black and covered by ivy and by the vegetation of a jungle that threatened to engulf and hide them so that they would never see the sun.

But there was neither ivy nor jungle. The complex was very well-maintained and very clean. Thank God that in a few short seconds that image dissipated and I could clearly see how things were. But that wasn’t the only strange thing that happened to me there. After touring the complex, my friends and I arrived at an area that had been cordoned off so that visitors could not enter. I asked the guide why we couldn’t enter, as I wanted to see the cave where they had excavated and discovered an altar and many wonderful gold and silver artefacts.

The guide, very surprised by what I had just said, asked me if I had already been there when they excavated the hidden temple. At that moment, I realized what I had told him and I was left speechless.

«Is that what’s behind the wall?»

«Yes Sir!»

With those two words the guide confirmed that yes, archaeologists had discovered a hidden temple beneath that same stone wall. He demanded to be told how I knew. But I don’t know how I knew that. The words came out of me as if someone else were saying them.

Upon returning to Spain, I went and told the shaman who had interpreted my dream what had happened to me. He explained that time does not pass for souls, that we reincarnate, and that sometimes, when certain conditions come together, the universe reveals the truth to us and we remember portions of other lives. He made me see that time passes, but not like trains that pass us by moving forward and forward until they reach the city of their destination. For us, time passes in circles that spin into the void of space but sometimes these circles, or bubbles of time, collide with each other, and the spiritual energy they release allows us to see images of other lives, as if they were scenes from a movie, and other things we have never imagined.

«There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.»

(William Shakespeare/»Hamlet»)

CHEERS

“JaZzArt”
¿Qué cosa es JaZzArt?
Ritmo – Improvisación – Espíritu

El Jazz es la música clásica norteamericana, según el músico norteamericano el Dr. Billy Taylor, que así describió la música Jazz en 1972. A mí me fascina y me dedique a buscar como se logra la mágica del jazz, y habiéndola descubierto, he utilizado la misma fórmula para muchos de mis dibujos y también pinturas. Las reglas del jazz son simples y en principio son solo tres: La improvisación; la independencia musical del solista, o sea que el músico es libre para tocar y componer simultáneamente y el ritmo, o sea, el swing. Eso tres elementos, si te fijas bien, los encontrarás en muchos de mis dibujos y pinturas. Es muy posible que siempre haya utilizado esa fórmula para crear mis pinturas, pero no las definí de esa manera, ni les puse JaZzArT hasta el 2008.

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Back in 1972 Dr. Billy Taylor, a very prominent North American Jazz musician and educator, said that Jazz was America’s classical music. And I love it! So I set out to discover the magic of jazz. Once I discovered its secrets I have used the same formula to create many of my drawings and paintings. The rules of jazz are simple and in principle only three: Improvisation; the musician as composer and rhythm, or swing. These three elements, if you look carefully, you will find them in many of my paintings and drawings. I reckon I had been following that formula since the beginning of my professional career in art, but I did not define it as such, or call them JaZzArT until 2008. It is still going strong.

GRACIAS – CHEERS

Venga, yo digo, y siempre he dicho que el arte es la búsqueda y creo que por ahí he dejado caer que busco. Pero si tu estas de acuerdo conmigo, y también piensas que el arte es la búsqueda, dime ¿Qué buscas tú?

Yo busco la espiritualidad…

GRACIAS

Un ejemplo de mi Surreal-Expresionismo en sus primeras etapas y que se ajusta cabalmente a la idea de JaZzArt. Fue en 2007 y todavía estaba investigando ambos temas cuando pinté «Moño Azul«. Lo pinté con acrílicos sobre lienzo. El fondo es abstracto; todo color. La parte principal de la composición es la silueta azul de una mujer cuyo cabello está recogido en un moño. Ella está mirando hacia su derecha, hacia una flor estilizada de estilo egipcio. A la izquierda de la parte principal de la composición se aprecia el aspecto más surrealista del cuadro, donde un rostro parece flotar sobre un tambor de mano. Esto simboliza la creación de música que se eleva, como humo negro del tambor.

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This painting is an example of my Surreal-Expressionism in its early stages. And which keeps up precisely with the idea of JaZzArt. It was 2007 and I was still researching both at the time when I painted «Moño Azul». I painted it with acrylics on canvas. The background is abstract; all colour. The principal part of the composition is the blue silhouette of a woman whose hair is combed into a bun. She is looking to her right towards a very stylised, Egyptian-style flower. To the left of the main part of the composition one sees the more surreal aspect of the painting where a face seems to hover above a hand-drum. This symbolises the creation of music which rises, like black smoke from the drum.

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GRACIAS – CHEERS

Some of the colours of VALENCIARTIST

CHEERS

…there is no time, there are no thoughts, there is no memory, there are no dreams, there is no spirit of the evening or an angel of the morning…

…there is no space, there are no planets, there is one sun and one moon that floats by…

…there are no colours, there are no lines, there are no angles, there are no circles, there is no music, no notes, no pentagrams, no hands to hold on to, no body to embrace, no human race…

…there is no birth, no death, no life, no living, no struggling, no yearning, no suffering, no laughing, no crying, no hoping, no denying, no achieving, no loving, no hating, no raising children, no making friends, no high school reunion, no careers, no jobs, no profession, no money, no poverty, no richness…

…there’s no reality, it’s all a dream…

…there are stones and only stones upon the plane of existence where we dream…

…I walked upon the dawn of the civilisation and I crossed the seas from eastern lands where there were palm trees, a powerful, eternal God and milk and honey, and I sailed the greatest ocean to these magic shores that cast their sand upon the waters, shores far from my home…

…sitting in the shadows of the rocks that built the mountains, I saw the brightness of the rising sun upon a temple made of polished stone…

…I knew my way, no one needs lead me, I knew the path to where I belonged, where I once had dreamt, where I once was cast, like a bird and spread my wings…

…On an eternal day, beneath the silver brilliance of the moon, I understood the nothingness of being, the nothingness of nothing, and nothing at all…

C.2024, Francisco Bravo Cabrera, 26 JUN 2024, Valencia, Spain

Uno de mis mayores referentes, junto a Pablo Picasso, Kandinsky lo admiro no solo por sus cuadros, innovadores y dinamicos, sino tambien por sus teorias sobre la espiritualidad en el arte. Kandinsky fue pintor, profesor y escritor y su legado, especialmente para la abstraccion en el arte es incalculable. Realmente uno de los grandes de la historia del arte.

Yo sé que hay varios canales que se dedican a informar, enseñar, y a criticar el arte contemporáneo y también el arte histórico y bueno, aunque no quiero ser uno más, lo seré por ahora…

Bienvenidos a VALENCIARTIST. Yo soy Francisco Bravo Cabrera, también conocido como Bodo Vespaciano en algunos países. Soy un poeta que pinta y dibuja y que además dirige un atelier de arte y los estudios/galería Omnia Caelum Studios Valencia. Comencé mi carrera en EEUU (Miami, Florida) y soy graduado de la Universidad Internacional de La Florida con licenciatura en teatro y psicología. Me he dedicado profesionalmente a la pintura desde 1996 y mi trayectoria profesional comenzó en 2003 cuando me contrataron en una galería de Estambul, Turquía. Trabaje por muchos años en Miami y luego en 2019 me trasladé a España donde continué con mi trabajo artístico.

Pero bueno, mas de mi en otra ocasión, ahora entremos en materia…

Voy a iniciar este ciclo con un artista que a mi siempre me ha gustado y que ha sido ciertamente un referente para mi, Wassily Kandinsky, el creador de la abstracción…supuestamente…que nació en Rusia en 1866. No comenzó su vida como artista, si no de abogado, y muy bueno tiene que haber sido pues le ofrecieron un puesto de catedrático en la Universidad de Dorpat (la más antigua de Estonia), pero no quiso y decidió decantarse por la pintura. Tenía 30 años de edad en esos momentos.

Se traslado a Múnich donde estudio en la Academia de Bellas Artes de Múnich, eso fue en 1896. Pero muy pronto llegó la gran guerra en 1914 y regresó a Moscú. Acto seguido fue la revolución rusa y se unió…más o menos…a la administración cultural de Anatoli Lunacharski (Comisario de Educación de la Rusia soviética) y hasta ayudo a fundar el Museo de Cultura de la Pintura.

Pero, su espiritualidad, su sentido del realismo no encajaba con el materialismo comunista y regresó a Alemania en 1920. Fue profesor de la Escuela de la Bauhaus (arte y arquitectura) desde 1922 hasta que los Nazi la cerraron en 1933. En Alemania creo sus mejores obras…

Parafraseando sus teorías, dijo que un pintor tiene que ser fiel a su lugar y a su época para que su obra tenga espiritualidad eterna. El pintor que quiera pintar como lo hacían los maestros de otros tiempos, no el suyo, esta destinado al fracaso pues su obra carecerá de transcendencia y de la espiritualidad que la haría, con energía y frescura, atravesar los siglos venideros.

Kandinsky murió en 1944 en Francia. Posiblemente su obra más famosa es «El jinete azul» (Der Blaue Reiter/1903).

Y ahora un corto vídeo clip acerca de Kandinsky y de la abstracción en el arte.

GRACIAS