The arrows of Gran Vía 32, a love story between buildings
Madrid‘s most popular street still holds secrets for those who walk along it. Above all, because it is almost impossible to notice all the details that compose it, because of the large number of powerful stimuli of this street and because sometimes one walks without looking. The most discreet elements go unnoticed, even those of great value. Such is the case of the arrows carved on the floor in front of the building at number 32 Gran Vía.
These arrows each measure almost a meter in length, but are camouflaged by the gray of the surface. Only those who happen to glance at this corner of Gran Vía or those who consciously look for them, knowing of their existence, can appreciate them. Both their position and their orientation have an explanation and a story that unfolds in that same street. But the answer to the question raised by the floor is, in fact, in the sky of Madrid.
The answer to the arrows on the floor of Gran Vía is in the sky. | Shutterstock
To unravel this mystery, the eyes must rest, first of all, on the building that occupies number 31 Gran Vía, on the opposite sidewalk. On top of it, with an impressive size and a golden color that shines when the sun allows it, a sculpture of Diana the Huntress is discovered. The goddess of the hunt, protector of nature and the moon, is depicted in action, pointing a bow in a most elegant pose. Diana aims and shoots, but two of her arrows miss the target and end up on the ground.
To locate the desired target we have to cross the sidewalk again, to the building behind the arrows, in Gran Vía 32. Looking up, one notices another sculpture, which corresponds to a different mythological figure. The goddess is pointing towards it.
Sculpture of Diana the Huntress, by Natividad Jiménez. | Shutterstock
The latter is not a novelty on the roofs of the great Madrid street, but the sculpture of Diana the Huntress is recent. The person responsible for it was Natividad Jiménez, who also became the first woman to design a sculpture for the capital’s central artery. She also devised a story to link the two sculptures.
Sculpture that can be seen at Gran Vía 32. | Shutterstock
The story that justifies these details has to do with mythology, from which he extracts a basis to build, with licenses, the whole story. Natividad designed her Diana thinking about the story that links the goddess with Endimión, a mortal shepherd with whom she fell in love. The goddess came down every night from the moon to meet him, until Zeus, her father, discovered the love story. The almighty father of the gods could not allow it, so he sent another mythological creature to end the romance: a phoenix. It kidnapped Endymion to take him away from Diana, but she discovered what was happening and attacked with her bow. This is the exact moment Nativity wanted to represent: the goddess defending what she loved.
Actually, the sculpture in front of the goddess in Gran Vía has never represented Endimión, hence the licenses taken to build this story between buildings. It is, rather, Ganymede, lover of Zeus, and is a replica of an original work by Saint-Marceaux that years ago crowned the Metropolis building.
The beauty of it is that it actually takes on a complete meaning without needing to obey the truth. The passerby, now already aware of these details, will look up to the sky and observe Diana fighting for the man she loves, who is being kidnapped by a creature she cannot control. Then he will step on the arrows that were subsequently carved into the ground, thus concluding this story of love between buildings, in the middle of Madrid‘s Gran Vía. This is the story of the arrows of Gran Vía 32.
