A Fairy-Tale that had No Happy Ending ****************************************************************************************** * A Fairy-Tale that had No Happy Ending ****************************************************************************************** Ever since Charles University joined the Europe Meets School voluntary teaching programme the Erasmus students of Art Education and Art and Design from the Faculty of Education hav participants of the programme. We have had many engaging projects introducing German, Ital Scandinavian, Spanish and Greek art, but so far there has only been one instance when an a prepared by Portuguese students. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Erasmus pr like to take the opportunity to look back at this project today. There is a simple explanation for why there has only been one time when a Portuguese art p place so far; there are not many Erasmus arrivals in this particular study field from Port University. We were therefore delighted when not only one, but four Portuguese Art student Charles University in the summer semester of 2013/2014. Three of these students joined the prepare two compelling projects on Portuguese art for our partner Basic Art School Olešská Ana Cláudia Pacheco Magalhaes, Ana Mafalda Sá Fernandes Nóbrega and Eduardo Fernado Carval studied Art and Design in the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo. When searching fo for their Europe Meets School project, they aimed for a mix of mediums for their art and d at inspirations from literature and architectural decoration. Their ideas concerned two gr group of children who they were teaching to create an illustration based on Portuguese leg group of teenage students of the Art School, who they helped design a blueprint of a typic tile. The younger group was introduced to a popular story from medieval Portugal, a true fairy-t had no typical happy end. The heroine of this story, Inés de Castro, was the illegitimate Galician noble who moved from today’s territory of Spain to Portugal around 1340 with her Manuel (Constance of Castile). Constanza was to marry the Portuguese heir to the throne, P King Pedro I) and indeed a wedding took place. Yet, Pedro actually fell in love with Const waiting, Inés, whom he took for his mistress after the death of his wife in 1345. Despite their wish to marry, Inés was not deemed eligible to be a queen. They had several before Prince Pedro’s father, King Alfonso IV, decided to have Inés executed in 1355. When king, later in 1357, Inés’s body was moved to a magnificent mausoleum in the Alcobaca Mona stated that he had secretly married Inés and proclaimed her the lawful queen. Until today, only proof of their marriage. Based on legend, King Pedro had his entire court kiss the de hand and swear allegiance to her. The lovers were finally reunited in death; Pedro lies in next to the splendid tomb he had built for Inés. It was perhaps the most difficult task for Ana, Mafalda and Eduardo to tell this story to public in such a way that the children would enjoy the fairy-tale behind the legend and no tragedy. Judging by the charming illustrations the children made to the story, they were i The older group was introduced to the art of producing and decorating azulejos. Azulejo is and Spanish word for a tin-glazed, ceramic tilework. The most common white-blue tiles are Portuguese culture; they decorate both the interiors and exteriors of churches, palaces, s houses and even train, bus and underground stations with the material. The word azulejo is Arabic word zellige meaning polished stone. Many of the geometrical or floral patterns on also unmistakable Arab influence. There are however also figural decorations on the tiles, depicting allegorical, mythological and biblical scenes. Popular themes in the past for th hunting and maritime motifs, but the azulejos nowadays are often more abstracted. The pupi create their own design proposal of a modern or historical tile of the azulejo type. Again the project was a big success. As it is common in the Europe Meets School art projects, both groups of pupils also had th be introduced to Portuguese history, including present day common affairs, and were also t Portuguese words. This introduction to a foreign country’s culture and basics of its language makes the art the Europe Meets School programme very attractive; we are therefore delighted that Charles its Erasmus students and Czech student volunteers (who translate the projects into Czech l the long-standing collaboration with the Basic Art School to host these kinds of projects. upcoming years there will be other Portuguese projects to look forward to; at present we f student’s work we have just introduced to you. Nicola Wheeler is a Erasmus student from the University of Kent in the United Kingdom, stu passionate about literature and history, and has a keen interest in current affairs. Nicol creative skill whilst studying on her year abroad.