Malet, Rosa Maria

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

I O A N  M I R Ó  
J O A N  MIRÓ 1 893-  1993,  
A C E N T E N A R Y  E X H I B I T I O N  
M MASIA, 1 92 1 - 1 922 
T O  COMMEMORATE THE CENTENARY OF JOAN MIRÓ'S 
BIRTH, THE FOUNDATION CREATED BY THE ARTIST IS 
PRESENTING THIS EXTENSIVE EXHIBITION WITH THE 
OBJECT OF BRINGING MIRO'S WORK WITHIN REACH OF THE 
GENERAL PUBLIC. THE EXHIBITION OFFERS A SELECTION OF 
WORKS THAT ILLUSTRATE HIS ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT 
AND AN EXHAUSTIVE COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS THAT 
SPEAK FOR THE REFLEXIVE AND CRITICAL ATTITUDE MIRÓ 
MAINTAINED DURING THE CREATIVE PROCESS. 
ROSA M A R l A  MALET D I R E C T O R  O F  T H E  F U N D A C I Ó  J O A N  M I R O  1 N  B A R C E L O N A  
A N D  C U R A T O R  O F  T H E  E X H I B I T I O N  " J O A N  M I R Ó  1 8 9 3 - 1 9 9 3 "  
CARNAVAL D'ARLEOU[ 1924-1 925 
O April of this year marks the 
one hundredth anniversary of 
Joan Miró's birth in the Passat- 
ge del Crhdit in Barcelona. People 
everywhere have wanted to ioin in the 
celebration of the occasion. In Barcelo- 
na, Catalonia and rnany other places 
around the world, preparations are un- 
der way to ensure the date does not 
passed unnoticed. 
Those of us who, through our work and, 
especially, our vocation, feel close to 
Joan Miró are overjoyed at this enthu- 
siasrn for two reasons: first of all, of 
course, because of the recognition of 
Joan Miró that this irnplies, and sec- 
ondly, because of the opportunity it 
provides to add to people's knowledge 
of this artist, a spectator of and central 
figure in the developrnent of twentieth 
century art. Because ... is Joan Miró 
really understood? 
People often say that Miró's painting is  
childlike, that his work is very simple 
and that the colours are the main at- 
traction. Doesn't this suggest that Miró 
is only superficially understood, in spite 
of his being an artist we recognize ins- 
tantly (something which no-one would 
questionl? 
We at the Foundation are determined, 
within the lirnits of our possibilities, to 
do our utrnost to provide as rnuch infor- 
rnation as possible so as to rnake the 
work of our founder easily and genu- 
inely accessible to the public. This ap- 
proach has materialized in the exhibi- 
tion "Joan Miró, 1893-1 993", with which 
the foundation created by the artist is 
celebrating the centenary of his birth. 
The structure of the exhibition hinges on 
two rnain elernents: a significant selec- 
tion of work which accurately reflects 
Miró's artistic developrnent, and an 
exhaustive collection of documents 
which speak for the reflexive and critica1 
attitude Miró maintained during the 
creative process. 
JOAN M I R Ó  
As regards the selection of work on 
show, in the eyes of the curator there is 
always something missing. This is inevi- 
table. But what I can say is that there is 
no period, no mornent, no series on 
which Miró worked that is not represen- 
ted. 
We can follow Miró from his figurative 
beginnings, from the moment when he 
expressed his concern for form and col- 
our in his paintings from nature of the 
Tarragona countryside and his portraits 
of friends to the culmination of his fig- 
urative period in La masia (1 92 1-1 9221. 
In Terra llaurada ( 1923- 1 9241 and Pai 
satge catala (El cacador) ( 1 923- 1 9241, 
we see how Miró moves away from the 
real-life model to start on a process of 
introspection which was to lead him to 
paint reality not as his eyes saw it, but 
as the inner model showed itself to him. 
El carnaval d e  I'Arlequí ( 1924-1 9251, 
on which Miró was working when Bre- 
ton published the first Surrealist mani- 
festo, is evidence of the ground he had 
covered to create his signic vocabulary, 
which grew out of his imagination rather 
than from any externa1 dictate. 
The irresistible appeal of the void of 
which Miró speaks (as Denis Chevalier 
says, quoted by Margit Rowell in Joan 
HOME 1 DONA DAVANT UN MUNT D'EXCREMENTS. 1935 
Miró: selected writings and  interviewsl 
is clear from the subtle blue and ochre 
canvases of 1925. In contrast, the five 
Paisatges imaginaris of 1 926- 1 927 
(Personatge Ilancant una pedra  a un 
ocell, Ma atrapant un ocell, Gos bor- 
dant a l a  Iluna, Paisatge (La Ilagosta) 
and Paisatge (de l a  serp)) mark the re- 
turn to a balance between the imagi- 
nary and reality. 
1928 and 1929 have given us Miró's 
interpretations of the work of earlier 
masters and also speak for his renewed 
preoccupation for painting from life. 
Examples from these years are Interior 
holandes 1 and the imaginary portraits 
Retrat d e  Mrs. Mills el 1750 and La 
Reina Lluija d e  Prússia. 
His drawings, collages, assembled ob- 
iects, etc. are first-hand evidence of the 
rebellion against painting as experi- 
enced by Miró at the end of the twen- 
ties and beginning of the thirties, and 
the metaphoric desire to murder it that 
this engendered in him. 
The crisis of "the assassination of paint- 
ing" was followed by another of an alto- 
gether different nature. The general at- 
mosphere of unease during the build-up 
to the Spanish Civil War and the war 
itself led Miró to represent the drama in 
his work with the tortured figures and 
acid colours which reflect the tragedy in 
paintings like Home i dona davant un 
mur d'excrernents ( 19351, Personatges 
asseguts ( 1 936) and Personatges i mun- 
tanyes (1 936). After this drama comes 
the mystery concealed in almost cryptic 
works, like the series Signes i figura- 
cions (19361, or the aggressiveness 
-not in the forrns, so much as in the 
materials used- of the series Pintures 
damunt masonite ( 1 9361, before coming 
to the most representative work of this 
period, N a t u r a  morta  d e l  sabatot  
(1  9371. 
Gradually, the air of drama disperses 
and is replaced by a new discourse. The 
repulsion Miró felt for the warring at- 
mosphere around him he showed 
through escape. Rather than let himself 
be beaten, he set out to search for new 
and freer, less contaminated worlds. 
Music now took the place occupied by 
poetry in the twenties, and very soon 
his signic vocabulary reached new 
heights in works like Autoretrat 11 (1  9381, 
Une étoile caresse le sein d'une négres- 
se ( 1 9381, Retrat 11 ( 19381 and Retrat I V  
( 1  9381. The Constel~ lacions series 
(1940-1941) represents the culminat- 
ing point of this period. 
LA  REINA L lL~ lS t i  FE WL15SII. I Q39 
From that moment on, Miró's formal vol  
cabulary was defined and consolida- 
ted. Miró said, "As I work, the shapes 
becorne real for me. To put it another 
way, rather than setting down to paint 
something, i start to paint, and as I 
paint, the picture begins to take on an 
existence of its own, or to suggest itself 
through the brush. The shape becomes 
a hint of a woman or a bird as I work on 
it" (James Johnson Sweeney, "Joan 
Miró: comment and interview", in Parti- 
san Review, February 19481. 
Gradually, the vocabulary of the Cons- 
tel.lacions gave way to a spontaneous 
approach to work which contrasted with 
the painstaking approach that can be 
seen in the work of the forties. Gesture 
began to take on more importance 
during the fifties and eventually pre- 
dominated. 
The 1962 exhibition at the National Mu- 
seum of Modern Art in Paris made a 
powerful irnpact on the press. Miró had 
taken on large-format pictures. Unlike 
his work of the twenties, the large 
empty spaces were striking not only on 
account of their power of suggestion, 
but also for their tension, for the silence 
they evoked. A testimony of that period 
i s  the tryptic Blau 1, 11, 111 (19611, of 
UNE ÉTOlLE CARESSE LE SElN D'UNF NÉGRESSE. 1938 
which Miró said, "lt took me a long time 
to do them. Not to paint them, but to 
meditate them. It needed a great effort, 
a great interior tension to achieve the 
nakedness 1 wanted" (quoted by Rosa- 
mond Bernier in "Propos de Joan Miró": 
L'Oeil, July-August 1961 l .  With the 
same asceticism, Miró painted the 
tryptic Pintura mural per a un temple 1, 
11, 111 (19621, of which he said, "By limit- 
ing rnyself to a few lines, I tried to give 
the gesture such an individual quality as 
to be alrnost anonymous -like a univer- 
sal act." (Denis Chevalier, quoted by 
Margit Rowell, Op. cit.). 
Of a more obviously dramatic nature is 
the Triptic de I'esperanca d'un condem- 
nat a mort 1, 11, 111 (19741, in which the 
interrupted line is an allusion to a bro- 
ken life, in the sarne way that in the 
untitled and undated canvas which clo- 
ses the exhibition and which was pain- 
, ted by Miró shortly before his death 
(who knows i f  in rnernory of his former 
master, Modest Urgell?) the strong ho- 
rizontal line and the black dot on 
an irnrnaculate and mysterious white 
background seem to be an allusion 
to the infinite, the unknown, nothing- 
ness. 
I have already said that one of the es- 
sential aims of the proiect we are pre- 
senting has been to offer the visitor an 
in-depth reading of Miró's work. Our 
initial premiss is that the works we have 
chosen will speak eloquently for them- 
selves. Nevertheless, since the Fundació 
Miró owns a unique collection -the only 
one of its kind in the world- of prepara- 
tory sketches for paintings, note-books, 
plans, notes, outlines, etc. donated by 
the artist to the institution he created, 
we have felt it was vital to present this 
material to the public along with the 
final work of art. We have done this in 
the conviction that this artist, who i s  al1 
too often described as ingenuous, 
spontaneous and childlike, and who is 
only superficially known to the public, 
will becorne Joan Miró, the reflexive ar- 
tist, painstaking, critica1 and responsi- 
ble, who was born one hundred years 
ago in Barcelona, and who was firmly 
convinced that "the artist is  sorneone 
who, in the midst of others' silence, uses 
his voice to say sornething, and whose 
duty is that it should not be something 
useless, but something of service to 
mankind". (Speech by Joan Miró on the 
occasion of his appointment as Doctor 
Honoris Causa by the University of Bar- 
celona, 2 October 1979). ¤ 


Joan Miró 1893-1993, a Centenary Exhibition

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