Machu Picchu – work in progress

(Originally posted 22 July)

My daughter-in-law, Lissete, comes from Lima, Peru. We have naturally visited this amazing country and have many fantastic memories and photos.

I have hesitated to paint the iconic Machu Picchu site, as even the many photographs I have do not do the place justice. The site sits above jaw-dropping cliffs down to the Urubamba river and has a calm, watchful atmosphere and an air of mystery. The Spanish Conquistadors did not find it when they invaded and there are many theories as to its purpose. One I like is that it was an agricultural research station – each terrace has it’s own microclimate.

I have decided to combine some of the detail I photographed in the morning when the weather was fine with the sombre shadows of the rain clouds we encountered in the afternoon.

This is the first stage – I have started to block out the shapes in the picture. That has already allowed me to see that some of the shapes are not quite right. I am using several photos in addition to my memory – so the final result will not exactly match any one of the photos!

One thought on “Machu Picchu – work in progress”

  1. From Lissete:
    Hi Peter, from my history lessons I recall that when the Spanish arrived to Tawantinsuyo (the Inca empire, now mostly Perú) there was a war going on between the brothers Huascar and Atahualpa for the throne. Even though there are many theories about the purpose of Machu Picchu, one of them is that this was the Inca’s retreat, like a holiday place for him to enjoy, but being at war and with no declared Inca for the whole empire the citadel was probably abandoned as the people would have taken sides and fled and then it quickly got covered by dense vegetation endemic of the rain forest where it is located. Atahualpa defeated his half brother Huascar and was later made prisoner and later killed by the Spaniards after paying a rescue of gold and silver.

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