A selection of pieces

Miquel Màrtir's work introduces us to a crucial question: What exactly are we talking about when we say that art and culture shape us? The selection of images shows us key and influential moments in the history of painting, from the symbolic creation of the Madonna to Arcimboldo's anthropologisation of natural resources, all of them crossed by the invention of perspective as a way of constructing the world and reality, as a symbolic anchor point from which a new system of subjective reference will be integrated, vital to the entire socio-political project of European modernity.

At the same time, Màrtir's work, which consists of faithful copies of recognisable major works of art, raises a second question that will accompany us as visitors throughout the exhibition: Are these authentic works brought to the exhibition? Or are they reproductions? Does that matter in the way we perceive and interpret them? Where do we place the boundary between the real and the fake?

Credits

Copy of Carlo Crivelli, Madonna and Child, 1480
Oil on canvas, 1999

Copy of Rogier van der Weyden, The Descent from the Cross, circa 1435
Oil on canvas, 2004

Copy of Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434
Oil on canvas, 2009

Copy of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Summer, 1573
Oil on canvas, 2005

Copy of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Autumn, 1573
Oil on canvas, 2007

Miquel Màrtir

Miquel Màrtir lives in Arenys de Munt (Barcelona). He was born in 1946 to a very humble family. After working all his life from an early age in various jobs, he retired. Thanks to a cultural classroom in his town, he discovered an untapped, hidden gift: painting. Pushed by his family and his teacher, with great precision, he delved into the world of copying great painters: Vermeer, Brueghel, Crivelli and Arcimboldo, among others. After exhibiting his works at the municipal level and for a time in Melilla, his great dream of exhibiting in recognised centres has come true.