Art Review Essay

Antoni Tàpies’ Quatre Elements is Relief for the Soul

November 2022

Walking up the stairs to the spacious second floor of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies – which is arguably too bare if we weren’t dealing with a Buddhist-inspired existentialist – the artist’s deep despondency and sadness saturate the air. It’s not hard to breathe, though – the air doesn’t stifle the lungs as the pain of another human being’s experiences permeate the soul. Rather, my lungs expanded effortlessly as my slow cathartic breaths tempered my contemplation of death and the passage of time.

The Catalan artist’s underrated Quatre Elements (Four Elements) is one of a few pieces hanging in this section of the museum. It’s the only work of the collection that so candidly portrays the recycling of life after death. The gray, cement-like material cast across the wooden panel, which replaces the more commonly used fabric canvas, peers into the gray abyss that is the mystery of human existence. It’s an unavoidable and uncomfortable glimpse into the illusive subject that intrigues us all.

Toiling with his own inevitable death at a young age, Tàpies began curating mortuary allusions after a long convalescence following a pulmonary illness. After this, he abandoned his studies at university to pursue painting and drawing. Tàpies’ unique entrance into the formal art scene in the 1940s was iconographic. Riffling through his pieces with primitive, enigmatic marks and gradually slabbing geometric materials onto thick canvases, Tàpies introduced a style of excavating earthly elements from the canvas rather than carving out space for them. This thrashing of materials simultaneously carved out space for Tàpies in the global art sphere.

The scratched and beaten base layer is bare aside from its corners, where a single element of life — flesh, body, marrow, or bone — lies, etched out of the gray matter. Scrapped up only within the outline of those elements, the golden oak-stained panel timidly peaks out. I imagine the wood feels shy and vulnerable as it lies under this unfamiliar and scrutinizing human glare. The wood itself illustrates the mystery of existence – something unseen and unknown to its onlookers and only discoverable within the elements of one’s physical self. It’s something I would expect to be profoundly and proudly presented as a universal revelation, but Tàpies – through much more restraint than I possess – portrays it in a plaintive style. A stark contrast to Salvador Dali’s surrealist painting Persistence of Memory, which captures the passage of time and its relationship to memory in dreamlike, familiar configurations. Quatre Elements goes beyond notions of the vastness of time and repurposes the progression of existence into a never-ending rendering of experiences for which any measurement would be insignificant.

Tàpies refers to a practice of Zen Buddhist philosophy in this piece, where a person is stripped of their skin and bones and drained of their blood and marrow until they become a gust of substanceless air. Yet, instead of existing as nothingness, a person is then recycled into a human facade once again, thrown back into feeble human existence to experience the unfathomable mystery of life. Conveyed as a natural journey for the soul, where the human body is merely a shell to house the experiences that age our earthly bodies too quickly for the time it takes to reach spiritual fulfillment, the painting successfully captures this philosophy through viewers' internalization and relation to the message. I, myself, felt as if my soul was released from the grief that bound me to my flesh, and, despite knowing that euphoric feeling would fade, I felt guided in how to achieve the happiness that lies beyond a single lifetime. The sheer bareness of the piece says all it needs; the answers that give one a reprieve from the mystery of existence revolve around the philosophical principles one holds. No painting can capture it. Quatre Elements purely pushes viewers toward understanding how this reprieve comes from within.

Although surrealists like Leonora Carrington dismiss the possibility that people can know enough about death to discuss it, she acknowledges art as the only means of beating death. Quatre Elements does this in blatant terms. It’s not a surrealist piece, it’s barely abstract, but through employing elements of near-nothingness, it beats the feared nothingness of death. For some, I can imagine from experience, it’s the only hope that pain will ever end and a new life, a better life, or simply an easier life, awaits a wounded soul. Yet, sadly, few people beyond Tàpies’ Catalan homeland (the larger, autonomous community encompassing Barcelona) lay eyes on this undemanding yet sincere piece of existential tangibility. As it happens, the magnificent world wide web also challenges anyone who wants to find it – perhaps, it’s too exceptional for one-dimensional observation, or those in utter awe of the simple piece gatekeep its peaceful excellence. I think complete infatuation with the skinned painting freezes viewers in their fast-paced, overstimulated lives. It’s a reprieve from existing through a graceful, naturalistic exploration of existence. As such, a photo of this humanity beyond the human physical state isn’t remotely on one’s mind.

Nevertheless, it’s an artistic form of spiritual whiplash that I think all people, regardless of religious or spiritual affiliation, should glance upon. I would surely expect, however, for that glance to draw on whether out of confusion or curiosity. It’s not a pretty piece. It doesn’t compare to the colorful, patchwork facade of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt’s Death and Life oil painting or the darkly sketched whirlwind of a soul fleeting its lender's body in My Irony Surpasses All Others by Odilon Redon. But its simple surface makes us confront what we rather not acknowledge: the mystery of existence may not be as grand or regal as we hoped.

Yet, it helps a soul like myself rest from the looming fear that this life is all we have, our only shot. It’s a symbol – whether true or not – that rewrites the concept of life after death wherein life is still life on Earth. As someone removed from religious subscriptions, it’s reassurance that there is time to live a full existence that doesn’t rely on the heavenly halls of Valhalla for more time in the afterlife. When human existence is a cycle, connected over numerous lives by a single soul, I’m suddenly given more time to live than ever before. Time to live rather than just be alive but struggling to breathe as the minuscule distractions that feed our bodies starve our souls and suffocate us.

Throughout my own existential quandaries and art escapades, I’ve never related so much to a piece that considers pain as an integral part of spiritual evolution. Tàpies, a man known to not shy away from difficult questions, uniquely reflects on how understanding pain not only diminishes discontent or malaise but also helps one overcome suffering. As in Buddhist philosophy, he invites viewers to engage in introspection to identify the origins of suffering in the hopes of eradicating its symptoms. Doing so in such a primal way makes it feel only natural. It’s an organic and logical human function to heal the source of pain rather than casually treat its side effects. We do it with our bodies but neglect such treatment for our souls. Quatre Elements is a tool of comfort. It reassures viewers that our bodies – if we can even call them ours – will renew and reset over time, but the chances to heal our souls are infinite. Even if it only serves to relax its audience so we can truly enjoy our limited time on earth, it gives the soul insurance that it will never die.

For anyone fearing death or pondering the mystery of existence beyond it, Tàpies’ candid and sincere conceptualization of existence is a safe and grounding stone on which to firmly plant one’s feet and trudge on in our earthly lives. We can enjoy life without the pressure of a deadline. For a painting that looks unearthed from the soil and mimics the primitive stylings of cave art, it’s a consoling outlook that life will go on and so will the life of our souls. And, if it helps us to think the two entities remain connected, that’s okay. But the fear of losing the relationship between our physical humanity and celestial spirit is as valuable as staring into the gray, mysterious abyss. It’s much more insightful to look into the elements of oneself for the meaning of existence.