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Characterised by an interest in texture and materials in the so-called matter paintings, Antoni Tàpies’ work can also be identified by the incorporation of a significant alphabet of signs. One of the artist’s major contributions to Informalism or gestural abstraction was his concern with communication. In different formats and at different times in his career, Tàpies used signs, numbers, signals, crosses, pluses and minuses, footprints and letters from the alphabet. Seen as a whole, this symbology – adopted by the artist in the 1960s – can help us understand his humanist, reflexive and spiritual nature. Later on, throughout the 1970s and especially during the eighties, Tàpies introduced elements of Eastern calligraphy in his work, seduced by the beauty of Chinese characters: a way of recovering the brushstroke, which he had momentarily abandoned in his matter paintings, to use it in association with writing and ideograms. Besides being a plastic exercise and a way of working, this was also a reflection of Tàpies’ attitude toward the world.
