DOI issue:
No. 359 (February 1923)
DOI article:Apperley, George Owen Wynne: Impressions of Granada
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21397#0105
IMPRESSIONS OF GRANADA
“ A GRANADA GIPSY." LEAD
PENCIL DRAWING BY
WYNNE APPERLEY, R.I.
the Spaniards for various reasons, though,
especially in Andalucia, their influence
can be easily traced in the manners and
customs of those same Castellanos who
despise them. It is seen to a very marked
degree in their arts, especially in music,
for it would be idle to deny the universal
popularity of the Flamenco ballads—
spontaneous creations of the Gitanos,
with a weird oriental rhythm of such
charm and pathos that, once heard, will
linger in the memory, evoking with it,
perhaps, the blue mystery of a night of
stars in the shadow of Comares* tower,
when the guitars answered the magic touch
of thin gipsy fingers and Conchita clapped
her brown hands and sang of the loves
of her gipsy people in plaintive minor
key. a a 0 a a 0
Among the Gitanos all the girls are born
dancers, and few are the youths who cannot
strum an air on the guitar ; it is in the blood
and comes natural to them. Little girls
of four or five years old may be seen any
day at the doors of the caves on the
Camino del Monte, moving their lithe,
sunburnt bodies in the serpent-like undu-
lations of the zambra, and stamping their
little bare feet in the dust while some old
crone beats time with her hands and
croaks some strange copla with tango
rhythm. Several of the famous dancers and
85
“ A GRANADA GIPSY." LEAD
PENCIL DRAWING BY
WYNNE APPERLEY, R.I.
the Spaniards for various reasons, though,
especially in Andalucia, their influence
can be easily traced in the manners and
customs of those same Castellanos who
despise them. It is seen to a very marked
degree in their arts, especially in music,
for it would be idle to deny the universal
popularity of the Flamenco ballads—
spontaneous creations of the Gitanos,
with a weird oriental rhythm of such
charm and pathos that, once heard, will
linger in the memory, evoking with it,
perhaps, the blue mystery of a night of
stars in the shadow of Comares* tower,
when the guitars answered the magic touch
of thin gipsy fingers and Conchita clapped
her brown hands and sang of the loves
of her gipsy people in plaintive minor
key. a a 0 a a 0
Among the Gitanos all the girls are born
dancers, and few are the youths who cannot
strum an air on the guitar ; it is in the blood
and comes natural to them. Little girls
of four or five years old may be seen any
day at the doors of the caves on the
Camino del Monte, moving their lithe,
sunburnt bodies in the serpent-like undu-
lations of the zambra, and stamping their
little bare feet in the dust while some old
crone beats time with her hands and
croaks some strange copla with tango
rhythm. Several of the famous dancers and
85