Thinking

Thinking of 1906 depicts one of Nonell's characteristic Roma women absorbed in private contemplation, her gaze turned inward rather than outward. The title itself frames the image: rather than a generic genre scene or portrait, this is a painting about a psychological state — the interior life of a woman normally invisible to bourgeois Barcelona. Nonell's insistence on painting the inner lives of the marginalized set him apart from artists who depicted poverty picturesque or exotic. His subjects think, grieve, sleep, and endure. The year 1906 was particularly productive for Nonell's figurative work; he produced several of the most psychologically penetrating Roma portraits of his career in this period. Now in the MNAC collection alongside several of his other major works, Thinking stands as an example of his ability to make an entire emotional world legible through posture, gaze, and paint handling.

The figure's contemplative pose is rendered with Nonell's dark, heavy palette. The tonal range is deliberately compressed toward the lower end, creating an atmosphere of weight and interiority. Warm-dark flesh tones are modeled with fluid authority against the deeply shadowed background.