Joan Miro: Graffiti for a Post-Franco Spain
House with Palm Tree, 1918
No artist's life and work – not even Picasso's – better represents the modern history of Spain as well as that of Joan Miro, whose early work, leading up to and including his expressive surrealism, is now on display at a major exhibition at the Setagaya Art Museum.
During his long life (1893-1983), Miro's homeland went from being a decayed colonial empire, dominated by dour traditions, through a period of progressive and anarchic change that ended in a bloody civil war and four decades of authoritarian rule under General Franco, to a period of democratic reform that finally allowed Spain to turn its back on its past and embrace its present role as a member of the European Union and tourist destination.
Miro's art has become the symbol of this change, being extensively used in the two major events that showcased this new Spain to the wider World, the 1982 Soccer World Cup and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. With the vivid optimism of its bright colors and playful shapes, and an iconic simplicity that allowed it to be easily transferred to other media, such as posters and TV, it was no surprise that his art was elevated to national PR status. But Miro is about more than cute logos for Spanish tourism as this exhibition makes clear by concentrating on his early work up to 1945.
What we get in this exhibition is the very pulse that shaped 20th century Spanish history. Although Barcelona, the city of Miro's birth, is, for better or worse, now considered one of the most cosmopolitan cities on the planet, in his youth it was, like the rest of Spain, something of a cultural backwater. This is reflected in the eagerness with which the young painter responded to the artistic fashions emanating from Paris. In these early works, you can make out the influence of Cezanne (The Bottle and the Pepper - 1915), Van Gogh (Portrait of E.C. Ricart - 1917), Fauvism (Cambrils, the Port - 1917), and Cubism (The Balcony - 1917).
Although clearly derivative, these paintings are some of the most enjoyable at the exhibition, delighting with their vibrant colors and the obvious passion and excitement of the young provincial artist.
Even better are the two so-called Detailliste works inspired, according to the exhibition's curator, Hiroya Murakami, by Vincent van Gogh's meditation on Japanese art. In one of the published letters to his brother, van Gogh wrote:
In Vegetable Garden and Donkey (1918) and House with Palm Tree (1918) this emphasis on the importance and integrity of the smallest elements is taken up literally as Miro individually paints each tiny blade of grass and flower petal, with a naive charm reminiscent of the paintings of Henri Rousseau.
Works like this may have been daring enough to cause a stir in his native Catalonia, but not in Paris, which Miro began visiting on an annual basis in 1920. Reflecting the influx of revolutionary ideas into Spain in the 20s and 30s, Miro's ideas began to take a more extreme turn as his obsession with details now mutated into a radical minimalism as seen in the sparse abstraction of works like Nude Descending a Staircase (1924), which, in its lack of artistic device, marks the low point of his art.
Although the long-lived Miro came to be seen in the TV age as a kindly old man, in these years his art and his language was marked by an aggressiveness, reflecting the tensions then building up in Spain between revolutionaries and conservatives.
"The only thing that's clear to me is that I intend to destroy, destroy everything that exists in painting," he told an interviewer in 1931. "I have an utter contempt for painting."
It is easy to see how this attitude transferred to the political arena could result in the chaos of the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in 1936 while Miro was in France, where he stayed until the German invasion of 1940 drove him back across the border.
The clearest manifestation of this crisis at the exhibition are the etchings from his Black and Red Series of 1938. The tortured distorted figures readily bring to mind those in Picasso's more famous comment on the Spanish Civil War, Guernica (1937). But the main effect of this period of political extremism on Miro, as with the majority of the Spanish people, was one of political disenchantment and detachment.
The mood of lyrical escapism apparent in earlier works, like Carnival of Harlequin (1924-5), now became dominant, strengthened by the continuing use in his painting of randomness and automatism, methods that enabled him to unlock the inner world of dreams and the subconsciousness more effectively than the drier figurative art of his co-surrealists, Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, and even allowed him to anticipate the abstract expressionism of the 1950s.
The results of this evolution can be seen in Women, Bird, Stars (1942) and Dancer Listening to the Organ in a Gothic Cathedral (1945). With their anthropomorphized hieroglyphic shapes, childlike freedom of line, and exuberant color, they already reveal all of the elements that would later come to typify Miro to the World and provide Spain with the graffiti to blot out the Franco years.
Joan Miro: 1918 - 1945 – ran until 23rd September, 2002 at the Setagaya Art Museum.
C.B.Liddell
Japan Times
31st July, 2002
During his long life (1893-1983), Miro's homeland went from being a decayed colonial empire, dominated by dour traditions, through a period of progressive and anarchic change that ended in a bloody civil war and four decades of authoritarian rule under General Franco, to a period of democratic reform that finally allowed Spain to turn its back on its past and embrace its present role as a member of the European Union and tourist destination.
Miro's art has become the symbol of this change, being extensively used in the two major events that showcased this new Spain to the wider World, the 1982 Soccer World Cup and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. With the vivid optimism of its bright colors and playful shapes, and an iconic simplicity that allowed it to be easily transferred to other media, such as posters and TV, it was no surprise that his art was elevated to national PR status. But Miro is about more than cute logos for Spanish tourism as this exhibition makes clear by concentrating on his early work up to 1945.
What we get in this exhibition is the very pulse that shaped 20th century Spanish history. Although Barcelona, the city of Miro's birth, is, for better or worse, now considered one of the most cosmopolitan cities on the planet, in his youth it was, like the rest of Spain, something of a cultural backwater. This is reflected in the eagerness with which the young painter responded to the artistic fashions emanating from Paris. In these early works, you can make out the influence of Cezanne (The Bottle and the Pepper - 1915), Van Gogh (Portrait of E.C. Ricart - 1917), Fauvism (Cambrils, the Port - 1917), and Cubism (The Balcony - 1917).
Although clearly derivative, these paintings are some of the most enjoyable at the exhibition, delighting with their vibrant colors and the obvious passion and excitement of the young provincial artist.
Even better are the two so-called Detailliste works inspired, according to the exhibition's curator, Hiroya Murakami, by Vincent van Gogh's meditation on Japanese art. In one of the published letters to his brother, van Gogh wrote:
"If we study Japanese art, we discover a man who is undeniably wise, philosophical and intelligent, who spends his time – doing what? Studying the distance from the Earth to the Moon? No! Studying the politics of Bismarck? No! he studies . . . a single blade of grass."
In Vegetable Garden and Donkey (1918) and House with Palm Tree (1918) this emphasis on the importance and integrity of the smallest elements is taken up literally as Miro individually paints each tiny blade of grass and flower petal, with a naive charm reminiscent of the paintings of Henri Rousseau.
Works like this may have been daring enough to cause a stir in his native Catalonia, but not in Paris, which Miro began visiting on an annual basis in 1920. Reflecting the influx of revolutionary ideas into Spain in the 20s and 30s, Miro's ideas began to take a more extreme turn as his obsession with details now mutated into a radical minimalism as seen in the sparse abstraction of works like Nude Descending a Staircase (1924), which, in its lack of artistic device, marks the low point of his art.
Although the long-lived Miro came to be seen in the TV age as a kindly old man, in these years his art and his language was marked by an aggressiveness, reflecting the tensions then building up in Spain between revolutionaries and conservatives.
"The only thing that's clear to me is that I intend to destroy, destroy everything that exists in painting," he told an interviewer in 1931. "I have an utter contempt for painting."
It is easy to see how this attitude transferred to the political arena could result in the chaos of the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in 1936 while Miro was in France, where he stayed until the German invasion of 1940 drove him back across the border.
The clearest manifestation of this crisis at the exhibition are the etchings from his Black and Red Series of 1938. The tortured distorted figures readily bring to mind those in Picasso's more famous comment on the Spanish Civil War, Guernica (1937). But the main effect of this period of political extremism on Miro, as with the majority of the Spanish people, was one of political disenchantment and detachment.
The mood of lyrical escapism apparent in earlier works, like Carnival of Harlequin (1924-5), now became dominant, strengthened by the continuing use in his painting of randomness and automatism, methods that enabled him to unlock the inner world of dreams and the subconsciousness more effectively than the drier figurative art of his co-surrealists, Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, and even allowed him to anticipate the abstract expressionism of the 1950s.
The results of this evolution can be seen in Women, Bird, Stars (1942) and Dancer Listening to the Organ in a Gothic Cathedral (1945). With their anthropomorphized hieroglyphic shapes, childlike freedom of line, and exuberant color, they already reveal all of the elements that would later come to typify Miro to the World and provide Spain with the graffiti to blot out the Franco years.
Joan Miro: 1918 - 1945 – ran until 23rd September, 2002 at the Setagaya Art Museum.
C.B.Liddell
Japan Times
31st July, 2002
Labels
2002,
Barcelona,
Detailliste,
Hiroya Murakami,
Joan Miro,
Picasso,
Setagaya Art Museum,
Spain,
Surrealism,
Van Gogh
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