Along the colorful walls heading to the Neruda’s house
Today, we went to the Neruda’s house. The Pablo Neruda’s two hours’ bus ride. In order to be the very first group visiting the house, we headed to the home use from early morning around eight. From taking the bus, I noticed the landscape changing along the highway. When it comes to the nearby context around Neruda’s house, the first thing interested me is the painted walls along the ramp heading to the top of the Valparasio. Because when the bus is going up to the hill, the street is too narrow for two cars to pass through, I nearly can see the people’s shoulders are rubbing the side of our bus, which scared me. However, the play of various colors along the wall is fascinating. The color and painting actually helping me to reduce the sense of distance or time. The reason why I say so is that the same situation also draws my attention while walking along the hill Cerro Concepcion, a two hour walking tour should be tired for me especially under the weather of 80 F. However, the surrounding environment of colorful paintings along all sides of the wall is filled with artistic creatures, is making the entire space a place where people could forget the time and location. I don’t feel tired at all, totally want to be embraced more by the colorful site while breathing the wind, which smells a little bit salty as the sea and looking at the sky, which corresponds to the blue of the further sea view as well.
Another place where there’s a lot usage of colors is the Pablo Neruda’s house. The location is at the high point, so I wonder whether there will be any relationship between outside environment and insider decoration. I find the colorful decoration inside this special building, not only the bright colors of walls inside all the rooms, but also those colored details on the glass or window. I bet every single day, when Pablo Neruda wake up by the bright orange and pink wall, sitting on the green coach and looking out of the colorful window, seeing the azure sea and sky, he will probably have a good mood.
Sketch of the living room of Neruda’s house.
The first link is a ten seconds video showing the colorful paintings along the ramp to Neruda’s house. Remember to watch it!
I also really enjoyed the Neruda House in Valparaiso. The colors were really good, I loved how they connected his house to the others in the city, but also the use of blues and pastels seemed to evoke the language of the sea. I especially liked the mural on the wall heading to the house which depicted La Sebastiana as if it was a ship in the ocean. To compare La Sebastiana to La Chascona (the Neruda house in Santiago), I would say La Sebastiana is the urban version of La Chascona. La Chascona was divided into three buildings and placed on a hill, in Valparaiso, since the site was more constricted, the house became much more vertical. Both houses had very interesting fireplaces. I loved how the fireplace at La Sebastiana took on the form of an exaggerated column and wrapped the corner of a doorway. This really helped connect the two parts of the living room. There were also a lot of interesting corners in the house. In addition to the fireplace, the entrances to the bathroom and the study on the top floor were both chamfered corners. I am also interested to know if the stairway at the top that dead ended into the wall was originally built like that or if there was previously a door which had been turned into a wall.