Joan Ponç

(Barcelona, 1927 – Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 1984)

Untitled

1948

gouache, Indian ink and pastel on paper

52 x 65 cm

Inv. no. CX00805

BBVA Collection Spain



Joan Ponç is one of the key figures of Surrealism in Spain. The artist used automatic painting and drawing to render a highly personal mythology, sourced from his subconscious. This method, common to the surrealists, allowed him to free his subconscious through the process of drawing itself, thus triggering a form of expression unfettered by any social bonds. His imaginary tapped into the History of Art and the infernal beings from the Middle Ages, leveraging them to create a parallel world that he materialised in his works.

A wish to reconnect with lost origins by means of art would lead Joan Ponç to create a painterly imaginary inhabited by mysterious and often infernal beings. Night, inasmuch as the time of day most conducive to inspiration, would become the main subject in his art creation. He chose it as the setting for his dreamlike scenes, like in the case of this work, executed in one of the most creative periods of its production, which coincides with its participation in the founding of the group
.

This composition contains several characters which are very economically outlined with just a few strokes of colour. The moon presides over this nocturnal scene, illuminating the atmosphere with its white light, submerging us in the parallel world of the artist and opening up for the beholder a window to a different and hidden world.