Significant life experiences and their relationship with the education of the scrutinizing gaze in the beauty ecologist César Manrique

ABSTRACT

The reality of the nature that we see can have multiple messages and meanings. Some of these are patent and continuously communicate with the individual, but others are hidden and are more difficult to unravel. A deep, contemplative and scrutinizing gaze is necessary to detect these messages. Educating this “new” way of seeing can help reinforce a person-nature bond that includes the aesthetic appreciation of beauty. This work shows the education of the gaze related to the artist César Manrique and the special bond that he established with the island of Lanzarote. He describes some key experiences, considered to be significant life experiences (SLEs), that revealed deep and secret messages to him and made him understand the true magnitude of the person-nature bond.

KEYWORDS:

• aesthetic education
• art and nature
• environmental education
• gaze education
• significant life experiences (SLEs)
• sustainable development

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the César Manrique Foundation for its material and immaterial contribution. Without its help this article would not have been possible.

In addition, we would like to acknowledge the support provided by the University of Navarra Museum.

Notes

1. Numerous awards endorse his trajectory: the International Prize of Ecology and Tourism, Berlin, 1978; The gold medal of fine arts, Banda de Andrés Bello, Venezuela; the Great Cross to Civil Merit, Oscar de Oro International; and the International Prize of the Moenchehaus Museum to the art and the environment of the city of Goslar, 1981 (Zaya, 1981).

2. It is referred to as “his” island due to the strong feeling of belonging to Lanzarote that he had. Manrique cannot be understood without his link to the island.

3. With his work, Manrique would transform the negative connotation that the word Cinderella has associated with the story of Perrault (1697) and give it a new dimension that includes beauty in it. Manrique associates beauty with the volcanic ash of Lanzarote.