Primavera II (Spring II)

Puerto Rican painter Antonio Martorell here presents the face of a girl, and part of her dress, as warm sunlight and bleached pastel colors blend together and obscure the rest of her body. Martorell seems to offer no explanation for who she is or why she is colored green. Her gaze drifts downward, away from the viewer, as she lingers on the edge of sunlight and shade.
Themes of nature and of man’s relationship with the environment are important in Martorell’s work. In this image, the slow awakening of flowers and plants in the spring is personified as a woman. Martorell injects a tropical sensibility into this lithograph, doubtless influenced by the light and foliage of its island context.

Text credit: Produced in collaboration with the University of Maryland Department of Art History & Archaeology and by Thomas Peters