Nueta i mans (Female nude and hands)

Antoni Miró’s new series “Nus i Nues” (Male and Female Nudes) is a return to the artist’s erotic output. The looks, gestures, postures and other elements used in his previous erotic works have been tossed aside in this series. The torso and hands now become the communicative agents.

The canvas is larger than life at two metres (6 feet) tall. It depicts the right side of a woman’s naked torso between chest and thigh. The arm lies on one side, providing a strong linear element. The vertices of a triangle are defined by the woman’s hands and bosom, which occupies the upper right half of the canvas, structuring the composition. In fact, asymmetry is balanced by positioning this part of the woman’s figure (which only occupies half of the right side of the canvas) with the diagonal line created by the right arm, visually linking hand and bosom.

The dual character of the image is made explicit at two levels: (1) between background and figure; (2) between left and right. Yet it is also implicit, since that part of her body that lies outside the frame seems to be alluded to by the gesture of the hands (only one of which modestly covers the woman’s crotch).

This series uses a colour palette based on natural sienna and transparent burnt umber hues, with black and white to accentuate shade and light. The background is usually dark brown and sometimes uses another colour (for instance, red). The two colours offer a surprisingly wide chromatic range within the absolute sobriety.

Santiago Pastor Vila