Footmarks and handprints, sand, wood, earth, rope, words and letters: Tàpies, repertoire is infinite. Miró encouraged him to use forms and materials of every kind, all the more so in an environment devoid of meaning-Spain in the post-war years-in which official reality bore no relation to the situation as it really was. Imperceptibly, true reality asserted its pre-eminence and the expressiveness of increasingly organic materials, endowing his painting with greater materiality than signification.