Hi all.
Well, I'll begin by saying what this is about. It is a response by me to a message from a mm member called HiFi.
In it he asks me if I knew whether or not the late great Antoni Gaudi used the so called "magic mushrooms" as a stimulant, or in fact any other stimulants in his life.
Here is the message as I read it;
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Hi there, Interested in your noticing the use of the 'magic' mushroom amongst Gaudi's iconography. Do you have any idea whether or not he used them? I know he was a very strict Christian, but, even so, many a Christian has used stimulants to heighten their awareness - I can't help but think that his use of organic forms to such an extent came from his consumption of 'magic' mushrooms - from personal experience, I know that they do give a fundamental awareness of the organic rationale of the universe - that is something Gaudi certainly worked with - where did it come from? Any information/comments welcome/ Peace and love. HiFi. **************************************************
And here is the answer I sent him in return:
Well, to answer this question, I had to stop and think for a minute, but without consulting any books or texts, or anything else for that matter, I have an answer that comes right of off the top of my head, and that is, any reference to a �Magic Mushroom� must be taken in the context of the day, and not in the way it has come to be known in the century after his death, because for Gaudi, the concept of the mushroom, as being magic, is as with all the things that were for him Magic by the very fact that it is all the work of Nature and therefore thought of as being the Magic that nature performs, and it is that which he tried to create and succeeded in re-creating in his works, he developed a new style of Emulating things that occur in nature, by using wood, Iron, other metals, glass, ceramics, etc etc, and adhering to the natural forms of things such as the mushroom, or the bend or lean of a tree for example, and basically anything that is a direct representation of all of God�s work, and that is all creatures great and small, including all kinds of vegetation, flowers, and yes even the humble mushroom.
He thought of all things in nature, created by God, as being magic, God�s magic, and with him being such a strongly devout Catholic, he felt very comfortable with and exited about re-creating things in nature, following the natural cohesion of naturally occurring geometric shapes & forms, as with the mushroom, which is totally out of the control of Man and grows into the perfection and weirdness and wildness that mushrooms can & do in nature.
He tried to stick to this principal of following the natural lines & forms found in nature, and for years told people when asked about his wondrously elaborate works in stone, like for example one of the best examples in the Park called �GUELL� in Barcelona, (which I am deeply in love with for reasons that even I myself cannot put into words or explain properly,) he said in response to the question �how did you make trees out of stone?� and he replied, �I had a tree in a certain place that I looked at each day for years, and it has been my model for creating trees just like it, out of stone� and this is what he was known for, and disliked for by many traditionalists in the world of architecture, who only knew one way, and followed straight lines, and boring cold flat surfaces, but Gaudi, he had flair, tenacity, style, a vision, a new concept, a new way of making things, buildings, artworks, etc look more fascinating, more natural, more in tune with nature, and at the same time giving praise for all things in nature, and a fitting tribute to the hard work of our Lord God.
I am Catholic, perhaps not so orthodox, or even very observant, but I do believe in God and all his works, and just like the great Gaudi, I can appreciate all the wonderful natural things made for us and provided to us to survive in this world.
Just look at how for thousands of years, people had to use what there was, to live in, like mud huts, with straw roofs, caves, tunnels, fortresses made out of huge granite blocks, the Pyramids, canals, sewers, roads, all these things are because nature has made them possible, and we follow the basic principles of construction in nature, thus making things much stronger than they would be if just man made.
He did not want to make things the way man would make them, he wanted to copy nature, and incorporate that into a unique new style and way of building things, decorating them with things from nature, animals, substances, food item such as wheat � not flour, as it is a man made thing � only naturally occurring elements & perhaps some new materials just to keep the modernists happy, but otherwise to be as over the top Gothic as humanly possible, with his magic mushroom chimney pots, and peacock fan tailed Iron gates, and his Skeletal Pelvis shaped balconies and so many other weird & wonderful shapes.
He really did break all the rules, (in his day that is, i.e. the late 19th century early 20th) and even the furniture that he personally developed was a revelation, and of particular concern to many tight laced upper class elitist snobs of the day, who would pay literally thousands for a so called master furniture maker to make them a dinning suit, but would not give Gaudi a single penny for his ideas, but now these days, and ever since his departure from us, they have gone bananas about his works, everywhere he is revered as being the all time master of Gothic and modernist/futurist artworks & furniture design, and yet he had so much trouble getting finance out of them, and were it not for his old friend and benefactor Eusebi Guell, and the loving of and faith in the style & work of Antoni Gaudi, he would have sunk without trace years earlier, because it was his money that really saved his bacon in the late 19th century, and as could have been predicted, when Guell died, the money was stopped, as did the construction of La Sagrada Familia not long after, and of course this set Gaudi on the downward slope as he went in to his final years of being able to keep fighting the establishment, and he wandered back & forth each day, to & from the work site of La Sagrada, to his home on the Park Guell estate, until he could no longer manage to do that, and slept on-site for months, although quite ill by now, and the one morning he tried to go home one more time, walked through the city, half dazed and right in front of an oncoming Tram.
I have been inside the park Guell myself many many times over the years, and have kept a watch on how the works are doing at the Sagrada Familia, but for the last couple of years I have tended to be mostly in and around Madrid, for many reasons, personal, business, all kinds, but still I have managed to be there at least once last year in September, and should be going to somewhere else in September this year, in Castilla, Valladolid, Burgos etc, but I still badly feel the pull and strong need to go back to my beloved Barcelona and be with the spirit of the old Master, to sit & walk in Park Guell again, to walk up to the �Tres Cruces� or Tres Creus in Catalan, and stand inside his house in the park, is something that has no words to describe, you simply have to just go there and feel his presence, as I have done many many times, and of course a day trip to the magnificent Montserrat is the thing that I am craving the most, as I fell in love with that place years ago, during times when I was suffering badly with physical pains in my back, neck and joints, and could barely walk or stand, and yet when I went there for the first time, I walked on the mountain, and since then have done so again & again, and for me it is one of the places that I have been able to open up to �my God� and I have felt his presence with me there, as I have in many other places in Espa�a, in both Catalunya and Castilla, and I really am saddened by the blow that the hard core Catalan extremists have dealt the rest of the country by almost literally (although not quite yet) wiping out the use of Castellano and putting everything back into Catalan, it is in my opinion so so so unnecessary, and does not help Catalunya or it�s people at all, not now or in the future, even though it is true to say that it was originally their language long ago, but times have changed, and they are and have been a full time member of the Kingdom of Espa�a for a long long time, and should just leave it alone now, but they won�t, and it is in my opinion a very sad chapter in Spains history, but then that�s another story, for another time eh!!
Please study up on the life & times & works & wonders of Antoni Gaudi, by whatever means you have at your disposal, go there, be with him in all those places that he and he alone created, and you to will discover something else, and never associate Gaudi with anything unsavoury like the taking of hallucinogens or anything else for that matter, because he doesn�t deserve that line of thought, he was and still is a great master in his own right, and he sacrificed himself for his art, and suffered terrible years of anguish trying to get sponsorship for his great designs, and they called him mad and a cranky eccentric, and perhaps they too thought as you do that he was on something, but now they use his Great name and marvellous works of genius to hold up & maintain the tourist business in Barcelona & Catalunya in general, and it makes me feel sick for him, because for the last 40 years or more they have used him and everything he suffered to make, to draw people to the city, and now it�s all flog flog flog flog flog the Gaudi souvenirs, books, paintings, stories, his crazy looking futuristic buildings etc, how ironic can you get!!
This is the same man that the Pope of the day, came all the way to meet, and see what all the fuss was about, when he got papal approval to build a Roman Catholic Temple, giving tribute to the Holy family, and the locals started ringing the alarm bells when Gaudi had to take over, and started making nativity scene, followed by tortoises under pillars, snakes, and so on, they thought he had gone crazy and called the Pope, and others ceased to provide finance, and the Vatican sat back and left him to it, and provided no finance whatsoever. And so the poor old man started to see that he was never going to see the finished item in his lifetime, what a shock to his esteem, to realise that he could not finish his life long dream, this once only ever opportunity to recreate scenes from heaven and earth blended together in perfect hyper-Gothic Harmony, an absolutely Intoxicating confection of all things bright and beautiful all creatures great and small, the shapes, forms, curves, lines, textures, colours, religious themes, nature scenes, his master piece, that encapsulated all the elements that he ever wanted to use in the building of such a monumentally important edifice, a Roman Catholic Temple, a place of worship.
It�s almost like some kind of blessing that he was not around to see the Spanish civil war, and witness the kind of horror and destruction that that dirty little war caused.
Please go and read more about him, and it all, the whole story, the whole thing, it�s all out there, big books about him and his works etc. It�s only unfortunate that so much of the proceeds finds it way back into the pockets of those who would have turned their backs on his ideas, and who now get fatter as a direct result of all of his works of art.
I have decided that I don�t give a flying rats arse about my previous agenda for this year, because I will be going back to be with the Master once again this year in September for at least a week, and I am Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo looking forwards to being there again, that I can barely contain my joy at the thought of seeing Park Guell again and walking up to the Tres Cruces, which you simply have to do in order to know & understand what the hell I am talking about, and then go to Montserrat for the day, and walk around on top of a four and a half thousand foot high Mountain, looking back at Barcelona some 50+ kilometres away, and clearly sitting pretty on the warm and wonderful Mediterranean coast.
Do go, and try to experience what I have discovered, although my experience was somewhat more religious in nature than yours might be, and before I went there, some years ago, I have never felt so strongly in touch with God and my own belief & faith, and since then it is the same every time I am there, I feel so different somehow, as though I have been guided there by God in order to sort out my life, seeing as it was in such a mess for so long, and still is in certain ways, I�m not out of the woods yet, I am still trying to sort out my head and body, as I am stricken with back & neck problems, and suffer from psychological trauma, stress, post traumatic stress disorder, and chronic insomnia, and so I still need to go and chill out in such places in and around various parts of Spain. Well it works for me, and at the same time I continue to learn more and more about so many things and so many great people, past & present, who have helped make Espa�a the truly great country that it is today.
Antoni Gaudi was quite literally a
Genius in his day, if only we had more like him in this world.
Sorry it was such a long-winded answer to your question HiFi,�����but you asked!!
Barcelona here I come.........see you there perhaps. :cheers:
Enlaces/Links
Gaudi's home page More about Gaudi Sagradafamilia.org The Spanish village (1) The Spanish village(2) The Spanish village (3) MONTSERRAT IN CATALUNYA montserrat parque nacional El Cremallera de Montserrat - The New Rack Railway ANTONI GAUDI 2002 bcn.es Guia del Ocio BCN Barcelona connect.com Turisme de Barcelona Timeout - Barcelona loquo.com TMB - Transports Metropolitans de Bacelona The weather in Barcelona El Callejero - Mapas
