Aguas de Moguda (Waters of Moguda)

Aguas de Moguda (Waters of Moguda) of 1917 takes its subject from the Can Moguda estate and its water features in the Vallès Occidental region northwest of Barcelona, an area of fields, streams, and traditional Catalan farmhouses. Mir returned repeatedly to this kind of sheltered, water-rich landscape, finding in its pools, streams, and irrigation channels the reflective surfaces and play of light that his chromatic method required. By 1917 Mir was in his forties and producing work of sustained maturity; the radical discoveries of his post-illness Tarragona period had settled into a confident personal style that could be applied to any subject without losing its intensity. Now in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, this painting stands as an example of his later landscape work. The title's reference to 'waters' signals the centrality of the aquatic element — reflections, movement, light on water — to Mir's pictorial vision.

Water plays a defining role, providing reflective surfaces for broken color and a visual contrast between the fluid plane and surrounding solid landscape. Mir's impasto is dense, with warm and cool tones applied in juxtaposition.