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What does the pear drawn on the ground in a public place mean? Walking along Avenida Pedralbes in Barcelona, ??I discovered that in the very landscape of the city, using pavement in public spaces, one can follow a short itinerary through drawings of “pears on the ground”. I don’t know its meaning and the end of this story, that’s why I ask this question to the readers.
Between the streets, Passeig de Manuel Girona to Bosch i Gimpera street, you will find a pear drawn on some floor tiles. Moved by curiosity, I decided to find out its meaning for this report in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia. But, I have not succeeded and I ask for your collaboration to find out what this action of drawing pears on the ground means.
The first thing I did was contact the Barcelona City Council (010), where they told me that they are not aware of any private or public initiative linked to this project.
Subsequently, I contacted a business association of the social initiative of Catalonia, with the same result.
I remembered that on Avda. Pedralbes, there are the Finca G?ell Pavilions (built between 1883 and 1887), which is part of the Barcelona Modernism Route, which is an itinerary through the Barcelona of Gaudí, Domènech i Montaner and Puig i Cadafalch, who together with other architects made Barcelona the world capital of Modernism.
The itinerary can be followed with the help of some indications on the ground: some red panots (tiles) fixed on the pavement, which mark the main axes of the Route’s itinerary and which are in front of the modernist works.
Searching I found some authors who cite the pear as a symbol of fertility. For the Chinese it was a symbol of longevity, while for the Greeks it was a representation of maternal love. For others, the symbol of divine love for humanity.
In the wise Spanish proverb I found, “the one who is under the pear tree, takes the best pear”, “the pear does not wait, but the apple waits”, “pear that talks is worth nothing”, “the pear lasts, time ripe”. I also found the ponderative expressions: “This is the pear”, “being of the year of the pear” and “the lemon pear”.
If we refer to the literal sense, the pear is a fruit that has vitamins A, B, C and K, minerals such as copper, iron, potassium and magnesium, as well as healthy acids. Its peel contains phytonutrients (these are defensive molecules for plants, which when ingested by us provide us with their protective properties).
In the past, when you were lost on an island, you used to send a message inside a bottle, throw it into the sea, hoping that the person who found it would come to your rescue.
It is very likely that it is an initiative where the artists have wanted to impregnate the sidewalk with their urban art, painted on the ground a pear writers (writers), of the beautiful avenue of Pedralbes.
Since human beings like challenges, I will imitate the inventor of bottled messages (according to the BBC, about 50 years ago, the British Paul Gilmore threw a message in a bottle into the Indian Ocean, hoping someone would find it ).
On this occasion, the same thing happens to me as the lost castaway when he is in a totally unknown place, I am sending a “help” message, substituting the sea for this article in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia with the hope that the message can reach the person(s) who have carried out this initiative, and together we can decipher this “enigma of the pear”.