My interest in The Moors and moorish influences came in "by the back door", so
to speak, after fourteen years of visiting the Iberian Peninsular where my main
concern was in the present and the recent past. The more I experienced and saw
the more I became curious about the obvious and less obvious moorish
influences. The obvious being for example The Alhambra in Granada, The Mezquita
Mosque in Cordoba and the many castles and fortifications throughout the
peninsula. For me , there was a fascination about the more mundane and maybe
more important moorish inheritance e.g. : Oranges, lemons, rice, the library
system, irrigation, architecture and the recurrence "Moorish Motifs" (to name
but a few) all of which remain in modern day life.
One social aspect I found most gratifying was The Mezquita Mosque which was
used as a place of worship by three main religions of that time and for a long
period, namely, Jewish, Christian and Moslems! In my "Traces" pictures The
Moors have been my inspiration and they are visible to a greater or lesser
extent according to the dictates of the painting. Sometimes the theme of the
painting is historical but more often it is a mixture of my personal experience
and attitude to life in general.
Erik Gamdrup Jensen.