Médiéval

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• Ana Mª Robles Gamazo asked

  I'm doing a final degree project on Tápies and I wanted more information about this work.Thank you

• Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen answered

  Hi Ana,
  
  Tapiés reflects in his art his Catalan origins and his rough past due to the Spanish civil war. This is recognizable when looking at artworks produced from 1953 onward. In those years, in fact, Tapiés was studying in Paris, and it was here that he came sensitively close to the work of Fautrier and Dubuffet. Tapiés' surfaces are affected by the long tradition of Catalan fresco painting, the devastating impact of the war on a whole civilization, and more generally by the Spanish iconographic painting tradition and its employment of somber colors and harsh reds.
  
  Specifically, this artwork has been realised using paint mixed with sand and cement and applied in layers of varying thickness. Combined with dark earth colors, this structure evokes the image of a weathered wall. "Médiéval" entered the Boijmans Van Beuningen collection in 1968 after being purchased by the Eindhoven collector Peijnenburg who also contributed substantially to the Van Abbemuseum's collection through donations and was also running his cookie factory at the time.
  The work is currently on loan to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid for a major retrospective on Tápies to celebrate the centenary of his birth. I hope I have given you enough information for your research.
  
  Good Luck and best regards,
  Mara