The Big Tree, Sa Calobra

If the title is correct (I know nothing about its origin), this is a work painted during the painter’s dramatic period of reclusion in the village of Sa Calobra on the island of Majorca. Given its facture, consisting of long brush strokes that denote his continued closeness to the Belgian Symbolist painter William Degouve de Nuncques, it could perfectly well date from that time. Taking everything into account, the greater sketch-like qualities in the conception of the picture would prompt us to date it from near the end of his stay on the island and not the beginning, when Mir still liked very finished execution.