Scenes from a Spanish journey
In 1976 I travelled through Spain settling for a time in the southern mountain village of Frigiliana and the coastal village of Nerja.
Nerja was still very much a fishing village but after several weeks, as summer approached, it was obviously a tourist destination too as the beach restaurants which popped up overnight made obvious.
Fortunately Frigiliana in the hills above Nerja and at the base of the Sierra Nevada was an option. It had a small farming community and an old Moorish quarter overlooking olive groves and the coast below. And it was here I stayed with my partner Rafael through the summer months.
The original paintings and watercolours were simply the everyday observations of the local village activities and the surrounding landscape. Returning to Australia in 1977 I decided to assemble some large canvases around a number of the paintings to capture more fully the sense of actually being there.
Each of the works became a view from a window in the house we were staying in, with stark whitewashed interiors providing contrast.
I have included the following notes from my diary which act as a verbal accompaniment to the visual images recorded in the paintings.
Notes from my diary
Frigiliana. At dawn, each day without fail, the sun rises over the hills in gradual motion - an orange ball emitting brilliant rays which press the mountain ravines into deep shadow, while illuminating the sparse foliage clinging tenaciously to the narrow ridges.
In the valleys, the heavy mist unfolds and drifts out of the olive groves, its cool dew giving succour to the tired vegetation. From the balcony outside the kitchen one can see the calm blue haze of the ocean glinting invitingly, the view of Nerja itself cut off by the hills, an undulating tapestry of cultivated land masses.
Below, built strata-fashion into the steep slope, are the lime washed houses that front onto the main street – their flat, faded terracotta roofs a pattern of intersecting angles. High over the village square, swallows swoop and climb around the church tower. As the sun’s heat intensifies, the vines overhead lend a dappled shade and a stray cat blinks casually at me from the balcony rail – the perfect place to catch the slight breeze that lifts the fronds of the neighbour’s palm in a lazy fluttering movement.
Nerja. Sometimes, after the daily Spanish lesson we stay to chat to Conchita, teacher and tobacconist extraordinaire, simultaneously keeping a nervous eye on her unrestrained Amazon parrot who prances energetically on his perch, mimicking a crying baby with disturbing accuracy.
After sunset the deserted beach plays host to the moon – a long wide trail of its reflected light streaming over the water to catch, hauntingly, the forms of the fishermen casting nets in long broken lines not far off shore….tomorrow their catch will be sold to neighbouring villages by raucous voiced vendors going door to door with their hand-pulled wooden carts, no mechanisation here.
A walk around the town . The narrow pebbled streets slope steeply, twisting and winding with the whims of the hilly elevation….the dark doorways of the houses convey an air of mystery and lend an intense secret beauty to the small white courtyards with their brightly coloured geraniums and leafy vines heavy with ripening fruit.
The women, stark and sallow in black, sweep the mule and goat dung from the cobbles as the barefoot children dart in and out of the honeycomb of doorways.
At noon, the baker’s mule picks its way along the cobbles, its brimming straw baskets swaying gently ….while old men recline limply on shaded doorsteps occasionally brushing away flies with vague hand movements.
As the afternoon wears on all activity ceases and the only sound is the water dripping slowly from the well at the front of the house….
Towards evening, the sky darkens to a deep ultramarine shot through with rose coloured streaks that illuminate the hills….and the streets echo with the clatter of hooves as the goat herds return for the night.
Jennifer Plunkett. July 1979 from the exhibition of paintings Scenes from a Spanish Journey
Melbourne University Gallery. 31 July – 24 August 1979