JoanaCroft on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/joanacroft/art/City-of-Valdrada-42926202JoanaCroft

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City of Valdrada

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"The ancients built Valdrada on the shores of a lake, with houses all verandas one above the other, and high streets whose railed parapets look out over the water. Thus the traveler, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down. Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada that the other Valdrada does not repeat, because the city was so constructed that its every point would be reflected in its mirror, and the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all the flutings and juttings of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms' interiors with ceilings and floors, the perspective of the halls, the mirrors of the wardrobes.
Valdrada's inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, and this awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness. Even when lovers twist their naked bodies, skin against skin, seeking the position that will give one the most pleasure in the other, even when murderers plunge the knife into the black veins of the neck and more clotted blood pours out the more they press the blade that slips between the tendons, it is not so much their copulating or murdering that matters as the copulating or murdering of the images, limpid and cold in the mirror.
At times the mirror increases a thing's value, at times denies it. Not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted, point by point. The two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them."

Italo Calvino "Invisible Cities"

We were asked, at the informatics class, to illustrate this text. I think that the image i've done is pretty clear, so i won't explain anything more but that i used colouring pencils and a BIC pen (black). But as it is a image to the informatics class, this will be repainted at computer, more precisely at Adobe Illustrator... So you'll see this image again in 2007 (i think) but with better, or worst colours :P eheheh.

Yesterday i posted here two similiar images with different colours. I asked the opinion of various people about which should i choose for the final presentation... some told me to use the blue version, others to use the purple version. I made this my choice, because i thought the blue one wasn't very clear... neither it was too appelling and happy as i wanted. Even so i still like the other one and i'll add it to my scraps later. :)
Image size
1243x913px 1.83 MB
© 2006 - 2024 JoanaCroft
Comments5
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dloc's avatar
os predios em azul ficam mais porreiros...dá a sensaçao que o reflexo é roxo e a realidade é azul...