“Seville lives in the certainty of living in a perfect past.” The final point of the book ‘Sevilla. The past perfect’ (Tintablanca publishing house) by Ignacio Camacho and Ricardo Suárez invites reflection on the future of a city exaggerated in its forms and meanings. In an extension of the baroque delirium beyond its stylistic issues. An imagined city, a trompe l’oeil, a daydream. A Seville recharged and empty of certainties. One river, two banks. A brand, a myth. A hurricane of energy, a magma about to erupt. The Seville seen by the writer and ABC columnist Ignacio Camacho and drawn by the artist Ricardo Suárez has crystallized in a jewel book published by the Tintablanca publishing house, specialized in travel and illustrated literature and which swells its collection with which, in the opinion of its editor, Manuel Mateo Pérez, will become the “canonical work that best defines and catalogs Seville.”
The Caja Rural del Sur Foundation has hosted the presentation of this book in a packed event in which a few glimpses of the profound, precious and erudite composition created by the two authors of this “map or guide” of a city that As Camacho has highlighted, it is nothing more than a “simulacrum.” The signatories of the work were accompanied by journalist Carlos Herrera, who served as host of a talk attended by numerous authorities. Among others, the mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz, and the councilors Carolina España, Rocío Blanco and Rocío Díaz. In addition, two former councilors of the Andalusian capital were present, Alejandro Rojas-Marcos and Soledad Becerril.
Cope’s announcer commented that ‘Seville. The past perfect’ is an “unheard-of gem” that is occasionally found in bookstores and has praised the “heterodoxy” of Suárez and the “creative literature” of the Marchenero writer. Their association has served to “revisit” a Seville that does not exist. «It belongs to the realm of the mythological. “Is it an invention or a madness?” Herrera asked Camacho, to which he responded that “a little bit of everything.” The two authors share a critical and constructive vision of their city. A Seville defined by Antonio Burgos as a “myth.” “A dream built through art, especially through literature and whose reality fades away,” highlighted the author, who has cited other great ‘fathers’ of this idea of an unreal Seville such as Romero Murube or Cernuda. “It is a deception, an artifice, Seville is not a lie, it is true, although sometimes it seems like a simulacrum,” he declared.
Suárez has pointed to that idea of a hyberbolic city inherited from the Baroque that lasted until the celebration of the 29th and that makes Seville “the most beautiful of lies.” In this sense, Camacho has elaborated that the way of thinking and understanding the city, of behaving, of relating, is an amalgamation of circumstances. An altarpiece of ourselves. Behind it there is nothing, there is dust and dryness.
The writer speaks of an “existential tension”, a mixture of faith, life and death that is expressed in Holy Week, the true “structure” of the city. His map, his “DNA.” Also, the most perfect manifestation of his overflowing energy. In this sense, the authors have lamented that if the city applied this impetus to other projects it would be an “unstoppable” city. «But what are we going to do to him? “It’s what we like, the baroque expression, spring, the Fair, the bulls…”, Camacho added.
For the writer, today’s Seville is heir to the brilliance left by a period of splendor that was curtailed by two events, the plague and the transfer of the Casa de Contratación to Cádiz. «Not only has it become associated with that moment, but also as a community it has been created from that double loss. Since then, there has been no leadership at all. Your colleague on the pages has defined it as a city of “apneas.” It took a breath with the Ibero-American Exhibition, returned to a state of lethargy and once again filled its lungs with the Expo of ’92. “Seville sails in an eternal hope”, in a constant duality that transcends the soccer jersey, the taste for one bullfight or another or devotion to an image.
Seville is a city written from absence, from a physical exile, but also melancholic. From the invention of Montesinos, Manuel Mantero, Sierra and Laffón. But also from Cernuda, José María Izquierdo, the aforementioned Murube or Chaves Nogales. Seville is a city that disdains its myths, the “zascandil liveist” Don Juan and the “femme fatale” Carmen, as Herrera has highlighted. For Camacho, Don Juan is today a character “cornered, indefensible in the present” and although the figure of Carmen has been taken as a feminist reference, for the writer both have been left for display before tourists.
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