Following a period of geometric abstraction, in the early 1960s Joaquim Rodrigo moved into a phase of neo-figurative exploration with a strong narrative dimension. It was this approach that led to the production of his many itinerary-paintings, consisting of subjective travel maps, pictorially organised according to a coded system of simplified forms.

Trás-os-Montes (the name refers to a a region in the extreme north of Portugal, literally translated as ‘Behind-the-Mountaints’), from 1964, belongs thus to a series in which the artist presents different elements associated with the journeys he has undertaken, elements which – like the memory that is retained of them – sometimes appear incomplete, distorted, fragmented, juxtaposed, accumulated, altered in some way, or indeed without any apparent logic. In fact, this painting contains references to particular experiences that are combined in a non-diegetic manner, and which are depicted through words, as well as figures, symbols or icons – which, in a semiological relationship, create a circular dynamic between signifier and signified.

The composition of the painting is characterised by a strong curvilinear dynamic created by the encounters between its different forms – whose frontal depiction exposes the two-dimensional nature of the canvas –, and in which, in reference to the colours of the earth itself, the artist employs a limited palette of ochres, combined with black, white and, occasionally, grey.

Margarida Brito Alves
October 2011