Esquerra (Left)

Throughout his career, Antoni Miró has resorted again and again to pictorial representation (employing greater or lesser alteration and de-contextualisation) of certain fragments of paintings in the Western Canon of Classical and Modern Art. He has also incorporated — as in this case — sculptural pieces to his set of referents from that canon. Apart from the selection and the de-contextualisation, this kind of work reveals a change in the expressive language. Julio González made the sculpture depicted in this painting (Mano izquierda alzada [Left Hand Raised]) in 1942, the year he passed away, in the midst of the Second World War.

With this piece cast in bronze, González alluded to the reinforcement of the role the Left should play in the war that was ravaging Europe. Antoni Miró wants to refer to this gesture of political affirmation and to insist on it here and now. A strong icon is again introduced in the functional circuit of ideology years after.

Apart from that, there is a kind of exchange between materials in the painting: on the one hand, the background incorporates bronze filings that are stuck to the canvas, upon which they oxidise. The filings are finally fixed with varnishes. On the other hand, a ‘new’ steel is used for the hand, with successive layers of collage and varnishes to give this element a clear corporeality. This renewed hand now bleeds as a token of the inflicted wounds.

In other words, the motif is brought up to date and, when painted, it is renewed in its appearance and brought to current times, yet without forgetting all the blood shed since then.

Santiago Pastor Vila