This is a splendid example of the graphic work from Tàpies’ artistic maturity in the late sixties. In this period, the artist began to return to the use of figurative elements in his work, perhaps as a reaction against the growing academic meaning attributed to abstract art at that time.

Coinciding with the beginnings of

 arte povera 

an art movement from the late 1960s in which the artists worked with ordinary “poor” materials which were easy to find. These included wood, leaves, stones, vegetables, fabrics or any waste material. The general rule was to reject expensive industrial materials in an attempt to reinforce creativity through a reuse of objects.

, the Catalan artist became interested in everyday objects. This envelop—Enveloppe, in French—was made with four lines, suggesting the archetypical cross so recurrent in Tàpies’ work, connected by a reiterated line and rounded off with a graphic sign. The motif of the cross is endowed with a fundamental symbolic content. Through it, the Catalan artist wished to connect with a symbolic tradition accrued throughout centuries of history and to achieve a “profound aesthetic” reach with his work. In his own words, “the artist is always in pursuit of fundamental, ultimate schemes, the most general justifications of things, the symbols that convey a universal and everlasting value.”

Lithography allowed Tàpies to create a direct, spontaneous work which he presented as a unique piece, criss-crossed with visual textures reminiscent of ink and graphite. Its simplicity and evident quality make it an exemplary work.