Bici-Bou-Blau (Bike-Bull-Blue)

One of the artist’s main reasons for painting the “Vivace” series is to reflect on the relationship between Man and Nature. The background is clearly critical of the harm we inflict on the environment and is combined with an approach that has a certain optimism. Antoni Miró considers bicycles to be paradigmatically ecological devices. The bike’s simple, linear, almost transparent structure, which comprises few elements and materials, makes it a shining example of environmental sustainability.

Morphologically, the bicycle shares some features with a bull. The configuration of some handlebars that stick out forwards as bull horns is especially relevant. If the horns are a bull’s most salient feature and the part that best embodies it, when translating this into a bicycle the author is bestowing this double condition on it as well. Here one should note that the structural frame of the bicycle has been changed, bending its elements, to give it a more bull-like appearance. It looks like a refined version of the bull-horned trolleys used to train would-be bullfighters.

Here a bull-bicycle (or even a more sophisticated bullfighting training trolley, as aforementioned) is set against a leafless tree, but because it is dead rather than because it is autumn. The cold blue in the background is linked to the tone of the bicycle’s blue metal parts. Black is used for other fundamental parts (including the tyres and saddle, which have the same patina as a bull’s skin). Red and yellow are used for some of the final details. The predominance of the blue colour is outweighed only by brief counterpoints of primary colours.

This ethereal bull-bike, as suggested by its colour, intentionally thrusts Nature into the background, suggesting fragility, but also bravery. Antoni Miró extends the metaphor of the harm modern society inflicts on Nature through the barbed dart used in bullfighting, stripped of its decoration. Its tip makes contact with the soft bike saddle. As in bullfighting, the banderilla [barbed dart] is a harbinger of impending death. It also presages a scenario of destruction and natural disasters, which is hinted at by the lifeless, fading background, stalking our horizon.

Santiago Pastor Vila