The Metaphysical City

Cities are man-made. Man builds the city with his own hands, creates it according to his creative mind; alleys, paths, streets, shops, wooden benches, stone benches, trees planted in avenues, skyscrapers and ice cream and food stands - all these are meant to provide man with the very space in which his life is spun , where all his life rotates and human tragedies occur.

Man builds his city, and this is the scene where his life comes to pass. Yes, here we see next to the bus stop how a father hits his child with his giant hands. Here this very man used to play with his ball when he himself was a child; and there, from the window on the seventh floor we see him sad after being fired from his job; and there just across the road he passes by a little boy , dark-haired, brown-eyed, that looks upon him in a serious manner and runs away .

The city is a static thing, yet it is ever changing, its houses remain where they are, just among them there is an incessant world of action : always rushing to work, running to clubs, sex shops, coffee houses, buses, trains, cars and bicycles rush by , backward, forward, forward, on and on , just to keep the flame of life living and the dance of life going on and on . There in this cacophony, in this hub and the everlasting on-going rush , among all these people, the pilgrims on the road of life, there on the thorny or sometimes rosy road of life, all the stories of life unfold , all man`s joys and tragedies, there, just there, on and on, to each man`s private road and life , going to nowhere, to the unknown , each and every man in his or her own world .

A city is a fact. Yet it is a big lie. It reflects its own image within itself. A strange love affair with its own self. Each and every stone can tell innumerable stories about the feet that have trodden there. At one time it looks so lovely, noble and magnificent, at others a nightmare; but it is all in the eyes of the beholder, for even love and beauty do come forth from pain and ennui and vexation of spirit.

Innumerable generations of architecture have produced the beauty of a city, like the symmetry of the Renaissance , the heavy facades of the strong fantastic buildings of the neo-classic era, the glass buildings of our modern age ; this magnificent beauty which is the fruits of the labour of skill and knowledge combined with intelligence stands in contradiction with the storms that take place within man`s heart. There is a sort of comfort and consolation to man`s disappointments right there in these buildings which are man`s own creation. There is sense and meaning, even though at times we may think that they are meaningless and what really matters is man`s life to live. These spiral stairs that are so beautifully and so geometrically designed that represent utter and sheer perfection stand against the numerous shirts and pants that hang to dry on the ropes in an ugly concrete building. The one opposite the other! The one in contrast with the other!

A square with perfect proportions in the midst of Prague; the eyes of a photographer turn it into a green nightmare, compared to the streetwalkers and pedestrians who cross Charles Bridge , each and everyone on their own , each and everyone with his or her own world, nobody notices the beauty of the bridge in the photograph and , the beginning of the bridge is not seen in the photograph, nor its end!

And in another portrait - The impressionist beauty of a reflection of shops in a puddle of water, a reflection that creates momentarily an illusion of pure beauty, while the sign on the shop reveals the the truth that is behind or beyond this beauty: sex industry with no emotional feelings . And another portrait of a city park lighted with lamps that reveal a lovely picture , but a close look at the benches will beget another closer …are these benches or memorial stones for the dead ?

In a photograph from New York we see the measures of humanity as against the gorgeous grand measures of the buildings, in contrast with the unoccupied chairs and no living soul in sight. Even in places where people are usually seen , such as an underground station, motion and constant noise rip through the crowd, in contrast with man , an unsolved mystery, an enigma.

As seen from the camera, the physical becomes metaphysical, current events come to light, and another enigma is born. You don`t have to create pseudo-significant scenes, for this can be easily revealed to those who look and see with their mind`s eye.

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