In this painting, Soriano presents an intimate view of two young girls, less a portrait than a still life imbued with metaphysical or surrealistic qualities. Soriano is known for painting strange and often unflattering portraits of the Mexican bourgeoisie in the 1940s, including images of children; one example is Girl with Still Life [Niña con naturaleza muerta] (1939; Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection). But this painting takes a more sympathetic view. In a closely framed and spontaneously-ordered composition, we see two young girls playing near a window by an old-fashioned wooden dresser. While one girl lifts a wreath of flowers, the other pins a cluster of palm branches to the wall. A stormy sky appears through the window. On the foggy, rain-specked windowpanes the girls have drawn a human profile and left two small handprints. The mood is that of indoor games on a rainy afternoon; the girls’ actions suggest they are in the process of arranging an altar. On the dresser are several unusual objects: a fleshy pink seashell that almost looks like an ear; wilted flowers draped over a pointing, disembodied gloved hand; a wooden mask that casts an eerie shadow on the polished surface of the commode; and two small red seeds or berries that almost look like the eyeballs missing from the mask’s empty eye sockets. Though not the usual symbols of vanitas, there is a moribund quality to these objects. By re-arranging the disembodied objects one might conjure a human face, such as the profile etched in the windowpane. Still lifes of seemingly unrelated objects connote free association (cognitive montage) and reveal the interest among members of the Mexico City avant-garde to avoid narrative closure. A similar feeling is conveyed in Tamayo’s Still Life with Foot (1928; Blaisten Collection). In the nationalist context of post-Revolutionary Mexico, artists like Tamayo, María Izquierdo, and Soriano declared their artistic autonomy by practicing more intimate forms such as the easel-based still life.

Vide Adriana Zavala, Arte moderno de México. Colección Andrés Blaisten. Mexico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005.