This Church occupies the site of the original mosque of Ibn Adabbas in Seville, built in the ninth century and converted to the Savior parish in the fourteenth century. The horseshoe arches of the Islamic era rest on columns reused in Roman and Visigoth. Construction work began in 1674 with architect Stephen Garcia and ended in 1712 with Leonardo de Figueroa.  This building remain a religious use until 1671, but with the passage of time it got a sharp deterioration. But later again it was subjected to a thorough restoration work which is completed in early 2008, returning  the temple all its glory and giving it the appearance of the eighteenth century.

But the remains of the original Islamic oratory, i.e., patio are still alive. The exterior features a tower with four faces of the bell, was built in 1724 and then subsequently amended. This great church has been mentioned by various eminent writers in their novels about the city life.

The church is constructed as the cross with three naves with chapels between the buttresses, the central area covered with a wood frame braces in pairs, side with a groin vault at the ends and the barrel vaults with windows on the rest. The interior is Baroque style from Seville and is decorated with sculptures and paintings by famous local artists. The cover consists of three archivolts, with images of virgins and angels. The interior is very spacious and has very somber atmosphere. Right now, this is the only church open for worship in the neighborhood of La Villa.

Its courtyard has a size of 25 by 30 meters. The arches that are available in the brick courtyard, supported by columns. In the center of the building is a tank. This gallery is covered with carved ceilings. Right in front of the church is a huge pine Norfolk Island, brought from South America earlier this century.

The church has always been popular among the Spanish people for weddings, of course, but in the last two years has become an increasingly popular option for many foreign couples either to the marriage ceremony itself or for blessing. It is a magnificent setting and has all necessary amenities at the door.

Inside, the beauty of the church is structured in 14 altarpieces, which are to highlight the main altarpiece, the Baroque style, the altar of the Santas Justa y Rufina in the baptismal chapel, the altarpiece of the Miracle of the last century, the altarpiece of San Cristobal of the eighteenth century, the altarpiece of Christ’s Love, the altar of Christ of the Afflicted, the altarpiece of the Virgen del Rocio and the altar of Christ of Humility and Patience.

Openings: Mass times: Monday to Saturday 9:15 to 10:00 hours, 19: -45 hours. Sunday 11:00 to 13:45 hours, 20:00 to 20:45 hours.

Admission is free.

Website: www.iglesiadelsalvador.org

John

If you are doomed with the tensions and worries of modern city life, why not rent apartments in Seville and visit this church to relax yourself. This place will give you ever lasting refreshment and internal pleasure.

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Until July 10th the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, CAAC, presents the collective exhibition:  Without reality, there is no Utopia. This exhibition gathers more than two dozen artists from different latitudes and generations and is based on the concept of Utopia and focused on the  deliberations of two of the key thinkers of this time and age: Andreas Huyssen from Germany and the Frenchman Jean Baudrillard.

This project curated by Mariano Navarro, Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes and Alicia Murría is developed around the framework of the proposal of the political construction policy that the museum lately has been organizing debating of the crisis of thought  that currently dominates.

The exhibition explores the debate on post modernity and the reformist exhaustion of modernity, resulting in the loss of faith of all theories that seek to explain the social process in its entirety and the ending of utopian illusions that moved the world in the twentieth century. Modernity is anchored in the period of bourgeois revolution and later on in socialist revolutions. In other words, it  is related to the dreams of transformations that are lost in postmodernism.

The exhibit observes the likeness set up by the disenchantment of postmodernity. So it grabs as a main idea from the critical work of the German thinker, Andreas Huyssen, where in his  ”Memories of Utopia”  he affirms that “reality has been lost and supplanted by its simulacrum , therefore utopia cannot exist ” This claim is based on the idea that utopia is the search or the goal to change the existing reality, therefore, at this time filled with unreality and the impersonation of virtual reality, utopia also disappears.

For the French philosopher and sociologist Jean Baudrillard  the postmodern world is not a reality, but a simulacrum of it, a sort of virtual reality, where seduction of the object wins over the subject and his desire. To Baudrillard reality and its aspects are obscenely violent and presented through the media as continuous and endless entertainment.

This interesting discussion of utopia has two sections: the first called  ”The description of the lie” a prelude to the analysis of skepticism based on the components used to manufacture virtual realities. The second section is entitled “collapsing” and is divided into the four milestones of collapsing, communism, capitalism, the idea of democracy and finally a obvious geopolitical collapse.

Among the plethora of artists who will be at  this extraordinary exhibition are Alfredo Jaar, Ciprian Muresan, Federico Guzmán, Oliver Ressler, the versatile William S. Burroughs, Wolfgang Tillmans, among many others

More info:  http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/caac/programa/sinreal11/frame.htm

Nancy Guzman

If you believe that you must have utopia to live in a better society, this is a good way to enjoy your free time and stay in Seville accommodation so be sure to attend the CAAC and then enjoy this beautiful city open to freethinking.

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Translated by: Marc
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Don Juan is a recurring literary figure, perhaps fictional o perhaps a very human one whose story has been narrated repetitiously by different novelists. Don Juan’s behavior reflects the universal epitome of the unsatisfied seducer.

It seems the first version printed edition of this personage is “El buraldor de Sevilla o convidado de Piedra” by of Tirso de Molina, published in Spain in 1630 and which takes place in Seville

In almost every adaptation. Don Juan is arrogant, licentious and his passion is to seduce and con women

In Tirso de Molinas book, Don Juan Tenorio is a young Spanish Nobel that has seduced Doña Ana de Ulloa. In a duel in Seville defending the honor or her daughter, the father Don Gonzalo dies and Don Juan flees from the city to continue his career of hoaxes and seduction. When he returns to Seville, he sees a stone statue of Don Gonzalo and invites the father to dinner. The ghost of the father accepts but insists that they have dinner in the chapel of his tomb. Don Juan agrees and once in the mausoleum the ghost ask him to shake his hands as a sign of peace, Don Juan accepts and shakes the statues hand, then the statue grabs Don Juan’s hand firmly and drags him to hell

There has been much speculation if this personage Tirso de Molina talks about really existed, Some Hispanists have revealed information about the Tenorio family. seemingly some of its members were womanizers. Miquel Maraña of Seville was also mentioned eventhough the was born three years before the publication of the book, what is true is that the myth of Don Juan exists since the dawn of times and will be with us until our final day

This myth influences key tragic-comical plays like Don Juan of Moliere from 1665 who show us a Don Juan that is a licentious, unfaithful, mocking, blasphemous and hypocritical person

Lord Byron satirizes our protagonist in a poem. Here he spins him around and presents us a Don Juan that is manipulated and seduced by women. In those times, the poem was considered immoral even though it was finally published

In 1844 the romantic drama Don Juan Tenorio of Jose Zorilla emerges. The female protagonist is Doña Inés

Antonia de Zamora’s book “No hay plazo que no se cumpla ni deuda que no se pague o convidado de piedra” is half way between Tirso de Molina’s subtleness and the fantasy version of Zorrilla. This paly was usually represented on the first of November until it was substituted by Zorrilla’s version, a tradition that has continued and remains valid nowadays

The list of writers and poets that revived and recreated this myth is long. We could specially mention Hoffmann, Albert Camus, José de Espronceda and Alejandro Dumas.

Ara

Renting apartments in Seville you can walk the streets that have given life to the exploits of Don Juan Tenorio, either in the version of Tirso de Molina or Jose Zorrilla. In the district of Santa Cruz, one of the most popular in the Plaza de los Refinadores, there a sculpture that recreates the myth.

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Translated by: Marc
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You could say that there are few shows more controversial in the contemporary Western world than bullfighting. Everybody would agree on the fact that it is an originally religious festival; a pagan celebration carrying the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. Think of Crete, for example, and the Minotaur and the labyrinth, and narrow waisted dancers, who dance round the bulls on the walls of the Cnosos palace.

The sand in the bull fighting ring was a circular arena, round which the bull, the bullfighter and the team would circle, like a kind of dance of the planets in the cosmos. In this sense, the ring is a kind of microcosm; a round stage where an alchemy takes place – where, in a communal ceremony, the essentially androgynous bullfighter kills the god, who is represented by the bull, so that man can live. It is the confrontation with the symbolic “beast“; ie, man’s subconscious. Indeed, the bull is a symbol of many different meanings. In effect, as well as being a metaphor for our subconscious, and our animal instincts , the bull is a kind of god connected to fertility, and the land. The five years of the bull’s life leading up the fight are crucial – open spaces, freedom, the best treatment possible; it is the life of a god who is worshiped, respected, revered and showered with offerings. The bull is god, and the bull is life, and this is a cycle repeated in the fight ring, in a dance of destruction, and creation.

The androgynous figure of the fighter and the bull come together in death, and human life becomes the profoundest symbol. The violence of the world is at the same time brought starkly into view; with the rite and the art producing the perfect fusion between the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

Naturally we cannot expect these arguments to convince the detractors of the festival, whose own arguments, which are equally as solid, point out the torture which they believe is inflicted on the animal in the ring for purely gratuitous reasons. It is seen as simply an arcane sacrificial rite.

In the midst of this heated debate, France has just become the first country in the world to officially declare bullfighting a “intangible” cultural heritage, in line with the criteria outlined by UNESCO.

Paul Oilzum

Fans of bullfighting will be celebrating in Andalusia, where it is a passionately practiced art form. Seize the moment and rent Seville accommodation – whose beauty, unlike bullfighting, is beyond debate.

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Translated by: Poppy
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