Geleta

Two common themes in the artist’s career — eroticism and his own culture — are combined in this picture. The merger is intended to strengthen the message of the picture. The picture is defined by the climax of a sexual intercourse: that is the intentional core. But we find two elements added over the woman’s body.

The first is a kind of ‘rainbow’ pattern dyed on her hair (though the number and order of the colours differ from those in a rainbow). The colouration alludes to her ecstasy. The other is a Catalan flag that embellishes the object of desire, reflecting the artist’s preferences as a desiring subject.

The image can be taken as a clear reification or, paradoxically, as an affirmation of female sexual liberation if one considers that the woman identifies with these attributes and obtains pleasure partly because of it.

Geleta’s face explicitly embodies her rejoicing and all the disturbing potential of the image. The fleeting character of the scene is achieved through her expressive gesture. Yet Miró wanders off the beaver trail taken by Courbet in L’Origine du monde [The Origin of the World] and leaves the sexual organs out of the picture. Jacques Lacan, the last private owner of Courbet’s work, could no doubt have his say on the painting from a psychoanalytic standpoint.

The picture’s background has deep red highlights that enhance the figure’s flesh in the foreground. Her body is lit from two levels to give depth to the representation, an effect that is further enhanced by the shadows she casts.

The similarities with one of Miró’s much earlier works — La fugida [Flight] — are obvious. In Geleta, the artist is much less explicit in engaging the viewer. His gaze on the female body is more like that of a voyeur, thanks to the framing chosen this time round. In order to achieve an expressive synthesis that shows the essentials with force, the background behind the figure is stripped of all relevance.

In some respects, we can also link Geleta with a more recent work: Senyera. The latter does not achieve the same level of explicitness as the former, maintaining the composition within erotic suggestion. That said, the artist combines again the same two themes to enhance them in a synergetic way.

Santiago Pastor Vila