The building of the Bañuelo (Baño del Nogal, Hamman al Yawza, or Axares) located in the historical centre of Granada, right in the Paseo de los Tristes, is part of present district of the Albaicín and, in the old days, of the district of the Axares (of Health or Delight), is the main character of the book “A Universe extracted from a dream: Hammam” published by the University of Granada. It includes the result of an artistic work carried out by Fernanda García Gil, Gertrudis Román Jiménez and Sara Teva Almendros, members of the research project “Constitution and interpretation of the artistic image” that, with the exhibition of their works in this emblematic building, transcend the traditional sense of the work shown to the public integrating them in the monument that hosts them.
The Bañuelo is a small but important place from the historical, artistic, social and religious viewpoint; its construction dates back to the Middle Age and its use has changed throughout time.
Sara Teva Almendros says that “the bath, inherited from the Roman thermal baths but smaller in the Muslim world, is a public, civic and religious building (in the double sense of corporal and spiritual cleanness). People went there to wash, get their hair cut, receive massages and meet; men and women went there in different days, and women also used the baths to prepare brides”.
The book book-catalogue, edited by the UGR, includes different papers and contributions about the exhibition and the building. Among these contributions, the Professor of the University of Granada Jesús Rubio Lapaz, emphasizes that El Bañuelo is, undoubtedly, one of the most attractive buildings of the artistic heritage of Granada both for its architectural importance and its evocative power of a city past historical and romantic at the same time.
Rubio Lapaz says: “It is one f the constructions that has preserved better its unitary nature as well as its spatial layout, turning it into one of the most suggestive corners for the aesthetic and emotional recreation”.
Reference:
Prof Fernanda García Gil. Dpt. Painting.
Phone numbers: 958 242960 / 958 24296. E-mail: tfgarcia@ugr.es
