Photographing Mallorca

In 2024 I spent almost two months in the Spanish island of Mallorca. I already wrote about my motorcycling experience there in the first article on this site. Here I include some photographs I took during my stay, as I tried to capture the island’s beauty which one can often run out of words to describe.

Architecture

Mallorca’s architecture compliments its superlative natural beauty. The buildings are profoundly human in scale and design. The old stone houses that dot the landscape are lovingly preserved in their original form, and have nothing in common with our modern cement-and-rebar monstrosities.

I am not well-versed in the island’s history, so I cannot make a comparative or sociological analysis of its architecture. What I can say is that this is supremely human architecture, architecture that does not blot the landscape but rather augments it, that offers to the observer calm, respite, and an inescapable sense of nostalgia.

I was particularly fascinated by the doors, of which I took several pictures. The beauty of Mallorca architecture is that the old forms are preserved not out of the necessity of poverty but from a superiority of aesthetic form over mean functionality and modern convenience.

Tiles with delicate hand-writing and sometimes depicting religious scenes in miniature embroider the entrance of many houses:

The Religious Ideal

As I visited Mallorca’s many churches and monasteries I couldn’t help but wonder how it is that people in the past were capable of such enduring beauty, and how it so happened that we seem to have completely lost this ability as their successors. I could only surmise that our age lacks the ideals that in the past called upon the intelligence, skill, and labour of men – both great and small – to manifest them in the material world. And these ideals, for the most part religious, but also militaristic and monarchic, resulted in a beauty and simplicity that is entirely lacking from our modern architecture. So, in the course of civilization, we exchanged one set of ideals for another, but what did we gain thereby? What purpose do our modern ideals of garguantism, utility, and efficiency serve? Or rather, who do they serve?

Landscapes

While Mallorca seems to be most popular for its spectacular Calas and beaches, I was more interested in its farms, mountains, cliffs, and seaside structures.