Reconquista

For around 800 years in Spain, Christians and Muslims fought to claim the land as their own. Previously inhabited by the Visigoths, a barbaric people, Iberia was viewed as a mystical land with an improved condition since the Moors ruled. As the success of their rule there grew, their territory grew as well. The popular belief during this time, however, was that the Moors oppressed the population under them. Reconquista, the name of my collage and the period during which the war between Muslims and Christians occurred, focuses on the cultural exchange and highlights of this piece of history.

My collage was done on my computer using a program designed for image editing. I decided to follow this format because I had designed some collages and blends in my early years of high school. I personally feel that this method fits my abilities best and creates a unique look for my collage. I also felt that printing out my collage from my computer wouldn’t do it justice and come out looking the way I wanted it to; printing it out would confine it to the flat, white surface of paper whereas keeping it on a computer would preserve the digital effects that I added.

There are various contents in my collage that overlap and cover white spaces as to convey the chaotic nature of the Reconquista. The top of the collage represents the “Christian side” while the bottom represents the “Muslim side.” On the Christian side, I included pictures of Christian architecture, soldiers, a shield, religious figures, and of Pope Urban II, who declared the Reconquista “holy”. I also added stamped patterns of angels to signify the deep connection that Christians had with their faith and of boards woven together with rope, to signify the stepped path that they took in retrieving Spain by 1492. The Muslim side of Reconquista focuses on the contributions that the Moors made to Spain: architectural design, the astrolabe, and advances in medicine. In addition, there is an artwork present that displays the way the Moors were interpreted by the people they reigned over (see picture of them playing chess) and wooden buttons added alongside the astrolabe to give the collage more texture and a sense of antiquity.

The image that I layered above all of the elements of the collage is a map of Spain. This is to represent how one event in its history helped shape its being.