This canvas, painted three years after José Escada’s return to Portugal from Paris in 1969, marks a change in direction in the painter’s work. At this time, the work carried out around symmetrical micro-figures moved to another material register (on paper, metal or Plexiglas, for example), as is the case with Untitled Modern Collection, inv. 95P347, with his pictorial work developing along two different paths. In one, the composition starts from the sign or symmetrical figure that increases in scale to occupy the entire support, as in The great sorcerer; in the other, Escada structures the pictorial surface with planes that frame black silhouettes, at times with references to the micro-figures that he never completely abandoned.

In this self portrait, we see an example of the second form of composition described above. The same can be said of another in which the painter’s face appears clearly on the canvas in the same relative position and with a similar treatment, although framed by a figure that organises the surface, in other words, exploring this other path of organisation of the plane on which he paints.

However, attention must be paid to the silhouette of the hand holding a paintbrush that appears below the face, which may be understood as an affirmation of the artist as a painter.

André da Silveira Rodrigues