Alfonso Michel

In the somewhat reduced thematic universe of Alfonso Michel, the imaginary inhabitants of the sea constantly emerge. Towards the last years mermaids appeared once again, but instead of hearty beings of life and imagination they are figures with a painful demeanor, as if ripped from the depths of the waters. Known also as Estatua inconclusa, this is certainly the Pygmalion of the sea, daughter of Silenus, metallically broken in pain in a decadent scene charged with melancholy and nightmares, as the later production of Michel tended to be. At no time does the artist abandon the compositional structure and plasticity of his pictorial subject matter, but the spirit of emotion he gives the work is different. It is, without a doubt, one of the better pictures of Michel in the Blaisten Collection.