Expectació (Expectation)

This work is part of the “Tribunal de les Aigües” (The Water Tribunal) series, produced by Antoni Miró between 2016 and 2018. The artist focuses on this ageold Valencian customary court, which he honours for its civil and democratic traits and for having survived as a sign of identity until today. In fact, the origins of the Tribunal go back to long before the conquest of the then Moorish city by James I of Aragon in 1238. The fertile Valencian plain has many irrigation ditches running from the Turia River to water the local orchards. The Ditch Trustees (whose origins can be traced back to Roman times) had to settle disputes regarding the water allocations. The Trustees still perform this service today. Their hearings are held in València every Thursday at Noon. The venue for the public hearings is the Apostles Gate of València Cathedral. All the hearings are in Valencian.

This painting shows one of the sessions from the first floor of the Casa Vestuari (the robing hall). Hordes of tourists watch the proceedings and often video or snap the scene with their cell phones. The crowds are depicted with washed-out colours because Miró wishes to focus on the tribunal and the cathedral setting. This is the only artistic choice that departs from a hyper-realistic treatment of the scene.

As a consequence, in the work, the tribunal’s members are highlighted sitting in a small railed enclosure on the left side of the Apostles Gate. The Bailiff’s head occupies the centre of the composition, with his characteristic hooked staff standing to the right of him. The defendant stands before the Bailiff and is escorted by the Ditch Overseer, wearing a black smock. Both are also rendered in slightly washed-out hues.

The gothic ornamentation of this part of the Cathedral is painstakingly rendered. The painter avoids depicting the main sculptures in their entirety and focuses, instead, on the representation of the secondary elements carved on the stone ashlars. These include the royal coats of arms of the Crown of Aragon, with the four palett gules (a heraldry term for vertical red bars) on a golden field of the House of Barcelona, which reigned between the foundation of the Confederation, in the 12th Century, and the 15th Century. These are the only elements in which the original polychrome decoration is intensified.

The title refers to ‘expectation’, but this is somewhat ironic because the defendant is the only one awaiting the Tribunal’s decision, in spite of the huge crowd witnessing the outcome of the procedure.

Santiago Pastor Vila