A Joan Fuster (To Joan Fuster)

One of the greatest intentions that animate the production of the series “Sense Títol” relates to the desire to pay homage to many important figures, especially those from the artist’s own culture.

Joan Fuster is one of Antoni Miró’s intellectual references. From the mid- 60s the artist maintained an intense relationship with the essayist that crystallised into collaborations of various types. Fuster wrote on several occasions about the work of the Alcoyan painter. The following statements are noteworthy in this respect: “young as he still is, Antoni Miró has already produced, and produced very well, a long, complex, tumultuously living body of work... Sometimes it is a cry of condemnation, other times it is revulsive sarcasm, from time to time it is the very incongruence of an art cornered by its own hypotheses. Hence its profound influence. And message”. The Sueca-born writer liked Miró’s painting. In fact, works by Antoni Miró could always be found hanging in prominent positions in Fuster’s home. The Alcoyan painter, for his part, always professed he had an enormous respect and admiration for him due to his great contribution to humanist thought, the struggle for freedom and the awareness of identity. He was a teacher to him.

Antoni Miró gathers this recognition in the subseries “Personatges”, which was collated based on certain criteria that give it a clear unity. The large size of the portraits, the monochromatic style with which they were created, the endowment of a special texture, which refers to the passage of time that affects any immortalisation, and the highlighting of certain singular elements through the application of a distinctive colour are the representative strategies characteristic of this set.

The painter uses almost all of them in this particular work. This enlarged portrait of Fuster occupies the entire canvas, overflowing its boundaries. All of this is produced using a range of greys slightly affected by a shift towards ochre tones. The volume is modelled by means of a sharp, highly contrasting blurring, which gives the representation a character close to that of the first photomechanical reproduction methods used by the written press.

This close-up, in which Joan Fuster poses as an intellectual reflecting while smoking, is somewhat enigmatic. The strong presence of his glasses, which do not let us see the expression in his eyes behind the lenses, transfers the key to the interpretation to the way he is holding the cigarette and inhaling through the holder. Perhaps the only thing suggested to us is the keen scepticism he transmits.

Santiago Pastor Vila