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Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
View online slide show - Dynasty and Divinity: Ife in Ancient Nigeria
Artists at Ife, the ancient Yoruba city state, created a unique sculptural corpus which ranks among Africa’s and the world’s most aesthetically striking and technically sophisticated. Dynasty and Divinity: Ife in Ancient Nigeria features the artistic accomplishments of this unique 12th- to 15th-century civilization in what is today southwestern Nigeria, and examines how factors of dynastic power and divine authority shaped the exceptional arts from Ife.
Technically and visually the artworks of ancient Ife are among the most remarkable in the world, including near life-size heads and figures of humans in terra cotta and bronze, some cast of nearly pure copper (a feat which the early Greeks, Italians, and Chinese never achieved). Dynasty and Divinity includes handsome idealized portrait heads, exquisite miniatures, expressive caricatures of old age, portrayals of horrifying diseases, monstrous figurations, lively animals, and an array of impressive regalia; a visual high point of the exhibition is a group of awe-inspiring, copper life-size portrait heads. The iconic complexity and variability of form reveal the extraordinarily creative range of Ife’s art makers, patrons, and viewers. Audiences today will experience one of the world’s greatest art complexes and appreciate not only the technological sophistication of these artists, but also the complex aesthetic language they developed to convey competing cultural concerns.
Until now there has been no broad-based museum exhibition outside of Ife itself focused exclusively on these works. Dynasty and Divinity, organized by the Museum for African Art, in collaboration with the Fundación Marcelino BotÃn of Santander, Spain, and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, will address critical issues of cultural identity, political conflict, diplomacy, and healing through the art of this early African polity.
The Nigerian government’s exceptional commitment to this project, with all loans coming exclusively from Nigerian museums, assures the inclusion of approximately 120 of the most famous and beautiful Ife objects in bronze, terra cotta, stone, and glass. With its accompanying catalogue, Dynasty and Divinity will present a new interpretation of ancient Ife art that addresses the political and religious realms in which these works were created and experienced.
The exhibition will open a European tour at the Fundación Marcelino BotÃn, Santander, Spain, in June 2009, have its first North American venue in New York at the Museum for African Art’s new building in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, and subsequently tour to several major U.S. cities.
http://www.africanart.org/inaugural/13/dynasty_and_divinity_ife_in_ancient_nigeria
Technically and visually the artworks of ancient Ife are among the most remarkable in the world, including near life-size heads and figures of humans in terra cotta and bronze, some cast of nearly pure copper (a feat which the early Greeks, Italians, and Chinese never achieved). Dynasty and Divinity includes handsome idealized portrait heads, exquisite miniatures, expressive caricatures of old age, portrayals of horrifying diseases, monstrous figurations, lively animals, and an array of impressive regalia; a visual high point of the exhibition is a group of awe-inspiring, copper life-size portrait heads. The iconic complexity and variability of form reveal the extraordinarily creative range of Ife’s art makers, patrons, and viewers. Audiences today will experience one of the world’s greatest art complexes and appreciate not only the technological sophistication of these artists, but also the complex aesthetic language they developed to convey competing cultural concerns.
Until now there has been no broad-based museum exhibition outside of Ife itself focused exclusively on these works. Dynasty and Divinity, organized by the Museum for African Art, in collaboration with the Fundación Marcelino BotÃn of Santander, Spain, and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, will address critical issues of cultural identity, political conflict, diplomacy, and healing through the art of this early African polity.
The Nigerian government’s exceptional commitment to this project, with all loans coming exclusively from Nigerian museums, assures the inclusion of approximately 120 of the most famous and beautiful Ife objects in bronze, terra cotta, stone, and glass. With its accompanying catalogue, Dynasty and Divinity will present a new interpretation of ancient Ife art that addresses the political and religious realms in which these works were created and experienced.
The exhibition will open a European tour at the Fundación Marcelino BotÃn, Santander, Spain, in June 2009, have its first North American venue in New York at the Museum for African Art’s new building in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, and subsequently tour to several major U.S. cities.
http://www.africanart.org/inaugural/13/dynasty_and_divinity_ife_in_ancient_nigeria
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Collecting Southern African Art.
COLLECTING SOUTHERN AFRICAN ART(IFACTS)
Scholarly interest in the reception – rather than production - of African art has grown steadily since the mid-1950s. While many African art historians continue to map the histories and meanings of ritual and other artifacts, now they are increasingly concerned about understanding the collecting practices of both public institutions and passionately committed – in some cases, totally obsessive – private individuals. This interest in exploring the motivations of collectors has also encouraged a growing focus on shifting patterns in collecting practices.Active, widespread collecting of African art dates to the second half of the nineteenth century, when ethnographic collections first began to be formed in response to the emergence of Anthropology as a discipline. While the majority of these ethnographic collections have remained in the public domain, most of the artifacts acquired by colonial administrators, missionaries and explorers have ended up on the open market. Originally bought as souvenirs, this material is surprisingly diverse, ranging from figurative works and masks associated with ritual practices, to utilitarian items like baskets and weapons, and various forms of adornment and dress.Because early collectors of African art – including artists like Picasso and Matisse - had a preference for figurative works that challenged the aesthetic norms of European sculptural traditions, much of the nonfigurative material languished for generations in the attics and dusty storerooms of private homes. Only interested in acquiring anthropomorphic works, early collectors generally confined their efforts to acquiring carvings from West and Central Africa, blindly accepting the then widespread assumption that southern African communities produced only utilitarian artifacts like headrests and meat plates. The internationally acclaimed South African artist, Irma Stern, shared the prejudices of these early twentieth-century European collectors; for although she traveled throughout South Africa to paint local subjects living in outlying rural areas, she nurtured her interest in African art by going to the Congo in the 1940s, visiting groups like the Kuba and Mangbetu, and exchanging tinned food and other goods for ritual figures and initiation masks. It is not surprising, then, that the carvings and other art forms produced by southern African communities are conspicuously absent from an exhibition of Stern’s collection of African and European ‘Christian’ art held at the South African National Gallery in the mid-1950s.It is only in the last two to three decades that there has been a dramatic growth in interest in traditionalist art from southern African. While it would certainly not be possible to attribute this interest to a single intervention, Roy Sieber’s 1980 decision to exhibit African household objects at the Indianapolis Museum and elsewhere, and his publication of both African Household Furniture and Goods (1980) and, earlier, African Textiles and Decorative Arts (1972), undoubtedly made a significant contribution to shifting African art collectors’ attitudes to, and perceptions of, the nonfigurative, so-called ‘minor’ arts of Africa. As Sieber pointed out in his introduction to African Textiles and Decorative Arts, the study of forms such as textiles, costume and jewelry had until then “been neglected by the West, where attention has been focused primarily on the sculpture of Africa.” As he noted further: “This attitude not only stems from Western aesthetic values but results in a geographical emphasis on West Africa where most traditional sculpture is to be found” (Sieber 1972:10). In a preview to his 1980 exhibition of household objects, Sieber confronted this bias again, noting that “Our Western view of African traditional household objects has been warped by our passion for the figurative, the decorative, and the unique.” In the face of this bias, Sieber affirmed the importance of studying household objects and encouraged his audience to develop an appreciation of the aesthetic concerns that informed their production. He noted, for example, that “Tools such as knives, hoes, and mortars tend towards functional simplicity; furniture such as beds, neckrests, and stools and containers of wood, clay, or calabash may be simple,even stark, or they may be richly varied in form or highly decorated” (Sieber African Arts vol 12,no 4,1979:29).Collectors who showed an interest in southern African art before the 1980s have pointed out – rightly - that both the figurative works and household artifacts produced in this region were virtually absent from books and museum displays in the 1970s and earlier. The widespread conviction that southern Africa was particularly lacking in sculptural traditions was also actively reinforced by African Arts, the only scholarly journal then devoted to the study of art from Africa, which failed to publish a single article on southern African carving traditions before the mid-1980s. As late as 1988, when Anitra Nettelton published an article on southern African figurative works in this journal, she devoted her discussion to questioning the then still widespread myth that all carving traditions from the region could be ascribed to the ‘Zulu’.This lack of understanding of southern African traditionalist art was to change dramatically following the decision by South African born Jonathan Lowen to allow part of his collection of southern African work to be repatriated in the late 1980s. When the private collector who bought part of Lowen’s collection decided to house it in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, several African art historians were invited to write essays for an exhibition catalogue titled Art and Ambiguity, Perspectives on The Brenthurst Collection of Southern African Art, which completely transformed our understanding of art from the region. Apart from introducing other scholars and African art collectors to a wealth of previously unpublished material, notably various headrest styles, Art and Ambiguity finally laid to rest the erroneous conviction that southern African communities lacked traditions of figuration. Building on her earlier work for African Arts, Anitra Nettleton used the opportunity to discuss figurative carving traditions associated with initiation practices among groups like the Tsonga and Venda, as well as other sculptural traditions from the region, while Sandra Klopper explored the history and function of figurative staffs and small statuettes from south-east Africa, identifying for the first time the hand of the Baboon Master, a carver who appears to have worked for indigenous as well as external patrons in the Durban-Pietermaritzburg area at the turn of the twentieth century. Since then, several other master carvers have been identified, including the Master of the Small Hands, and considerable research has been done to make sense of the informal workshops in which these artists seem to have worked. Written for Jacaranda Tribal.com by :Sandra Klopper Vice Dean: Arts University of Stellenbosch
Scholarly interest in the reception – rather than production - of African art has grown steadily since the mid-1950s. While many African art historians continue to map the histories and meanings of ritual and other artifacts, now they are increasingly concerned about understanding the collecting practices of both public institutions and passionately committed – in some cases, totally obsessive – private individuals. This interest in exploring the motivations of collectors has also encouraged a growing focus on shifting patterns in collecting practices.Active, widespread collecting of African art dates to the second half of the nineteenth century, when ethnographic collections first began to be formed in response to the emergence of Anthropology as a discipline. While the majority of these ethnographic collections have remained in the public domain, most of the artifacts acquired by colonial administrators, missionaries and explorers have ended up on the open market. Originally bought as souvenirs, this material is surprisingly diverse, ranging from figurative works and masks associated with ritual practices, to utilitarian items like baskets and weapons, and various forms of adornment and dress.Because early collectors of African art – including artists like Picasso and Matisse - had a preference for figurative works that challenged the aesthetic norms of European sculptural traditions, much of the nonfigurative material languished for generations in the attics and dusty storerooms of private homes. Only interested in acquiring anthropomorphic works, early collectors generally confined their efforts to acquiring carvings from West and Central Africa, blindly accepting the then widespread assumption that southern African communities produced only utilitarian artifacts like headrests and meat plates. The internationally acclaimed South African artist, Irma Stern, shared the prejudices of these early twentieth-century European collectors; for although she traveled throughout South Africa to paint local subjects living in outlying rural areas, she nurtured her interest in African art by going to the Congo in the 1940s, visiting groups like the Kuba and Mangbetu, and exchanging tinned food and other goods for ritual figures and initiation masks. It is not surprising, then, that the carvings and other art forms produced by southern African communities are conspicuously absent from an exhibition of Stern’s collection of African and European ‘Christian’ art held at the South African National Gallery in the mid-1950s.It is only in the last two to three decades that there has been a dramatic growth in interest in traditionalist art from southern African. While it would certainly not be possible to attribute this interest to a single intervention, Roy Sieber’s 1980 decision to exhibit African household objects at the Indianapolis Museum and elsewhere, and his publication of both African Household Furniture and Goods (1980) and, earlier, African Textiles and Decorative Arts (1972), undoubtedly made a significant contribution to shifting African art collectors’ attitudes to, and perceptions of, the nonfigurative, so-called ‘minor’ arts of Africa. As Sieber pointed out in his introduction to African Textiles and Decorative Arts, the study of forms such as textiles, costume and jewelry had until then “been neglected by the West, where attention has been focused primarily on the sculpture of Africa.” As he noted further: “This attitude not only stems from Western aesthetic values but results in a geographical emphasis on West Africa where most traditional sculpture is to be found” (Sieber 1972:10). In a preview to his 1980 exhibition of household objects, Sieber confronted this bias again, noting that “Our Western view of African traditional household objects has been warped by our passion for the figurative, the decorative, and the unique.” In the face of this bias, Sieber affirmed the importance of studying household objects and encouraged his audience to develop an appreciation of the aesthetic concerns that informed their production. He noted, for example, that “Tools such as knives, hoes, and mortars tend towards functional simplicity; furniture such as beds, neckrests, and stools and containers of wood, clay, or calabash may be simple,even stark, or they may be richly varied in form or highly decorated” (Sieber African Arts vol 12,no 4,1979:29).Collectors who showed an interest in southern African art before the 1980s have pointed out – rightly - that both the figurative works and household artifacts produced in this region were virtually absent from books and museum displays in the 1970s and earlier. The widespread conviction that southern Africa was particularly lacking in sculptural traditions was also actively reinforced by African Arts, the only scholarly journal then devoted to the study of art from Africa, which failed to publish a single article on southern African carving traditions before the mid-1980s. As late as 1988, when Anitra Nettelton published an article on southern African figurative works in this journal, she devoted her discussion to questioning the then still widespread myth that all carving traditions from the region could be ascribed to the ‘Zulu’.This lack of understanding of southern African traditionalist art was to change dramatically following the decision by South African born Jonathan Lowen to allow part of his collection of southern African work to be repatriated in the late 1980s. When the private collector who bought part of Lowen’s collection decided to house it in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, several African art historians were invited to write essays for an exhibition catalogue titled Art and Ambiguity, Perspectives on The Brenthurst Collection of Southern African Art, which completely transformed our understanding of art from the region. Apart from introducing other scholars and African art collectors to a wealth of previously unpublished material, notably various headrest styles, Art and Ambiguity finally laid to rest the erroneous conviction that southern African communities lacked traditions of figuration. Building on her earlier work for African Arts, Anitra Nettleton used the opportunity to discuss figurative carving traditions associated with initiation practices among groups like the Tsonga and Venda, as well as other sculptural traditions from the region, while Sandra Klopper explored the history and function of figurative staffs and small statuettes from south-east Africa, identifying for the first time the hand of the Baboon Master, a carver who appears to have worked for indigenous as well as external patrons in the Durban-Pietermaritzburg area at the turn of the twentieth century. Since then, several other master carvers have been identified, including the Master of the Small Hands, and considerable research has been done to make sense of the informal workshops in which these artists seem to have worked. Written for Jacaranda Tribal.com by :Sandra Klopper Vice Dean: Arts University of Stellenbosch
Tribal Art Museums/Institutions.
MUSEUMS AND INSTITUTIONS:
Afrika Museum, Netherlandshttp://www.afrikamuseum.nl
American Museum of Asmat Arthttp://www.asmat.org
American Museum of Natural Historyhttp://www.amnh.org
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, CAhttp://www.asianart.org
Australian Museumhttp://www.austmus.gov.au
Barbier-Muller Museum, Geneva, Switzerlandhttp://www.barbier-mueller.ch/eng/geneva.html
Bead Museum, Arizonahttp://www.beadmuseumAZ.org
Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, CAhttp://www.bowers.org
British Museum, London, Englandhttp://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CAhttp://www.crockerartmuseum.org
De Young Museum, San Francisco, CAhttp://www.thinker.org/deyoung/index.asp
Field Museum, Chicago, ILhttp://www.fmnh.org
Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CAhttp://www.getty.edu
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CAhttp://www.lacma.org
Metropolitan Museum, Works of Art, New York, NYhttp://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/collection.asp
Mexican Museumhttp://www.mexicanmuseum.org
Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CAhttp://www.mingei.org
Musee Dapper, Parishttp://www.dapper.com.fr
Musee de quai Branly, Parishttp://www.quaibranly.fr
Museum of African Art, New York, NYhttp://www.africanart.org
Museum of Craft and Folk Arthttp://www.mocfa.org
Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NMhttp://www.moifa.org
Museum Nusantara, Netherlandshttp://www.nusantara-delft.nl
National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.http://www.nmafa.si.edu
National Museum of Ethnology (Museum Volken Kunde), Netherlandshttp://www.rmv.nl
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CAhttp://www.nortonsimon.org/home_flash.asp
Oakland Museum of Californiahttp://www.museumca.org
Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CAhttp://www.pacificasiamuseum.org
Peabody Museumhttp://www.peabody.harvard.edu/title.html
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Englandhttp://www.prm.ox.ac.uk
Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgiumhttp://www.africamuseum.be
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WAhttp://www.seattleartmuseum.org
Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles, CAhttp://www.southwestmuseum.org
Textile Museumhttp://www.textilemuseum.org
Tropen Museum (Tropical Museum), Amsterdam, Netherlandshttp://tropenmuseum.nl
UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, CAhttp://www.fowler.ucla.edu/incEngine
University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, PAhttp://www.museum.upenn.edu
Wereld Museum, Rotterdamhttp://www.wereldmuseum.nl
Afrika Museum, Netherlandshttp://www.afrikamuseum.nl
American Museum of Asmat Arthttp://www.asmat.org
American Museum of Natural Historyhttp://www.amnh.org
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, CAhttp://www.asianart.org
Australian Museumhttp://www.austmus.gov.au
Barbier-Muller Museum, Geneva, Switzerlandhttp://www.barbier-mueller.ch/eng/geneva.html
Bead Museum, Arizonahttp://www.beadmuseumAZ.org
Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, CAhttp://www.bowers.org
British Museum, London, Englandhttp://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CAhttp://www.crockerartmuseum.org
De Young Museum, San Francisco, CAhttp://www.thinker.org/deyoung/index.asp
Field Museum, Chicago, ILhttp://www.fmnh.org
Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CAhttp://www.getty.edu
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CAhttp://www.lacma.org
Metropolitan Museum, Works of Art, New York, NYhttp://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/collection.asp
Mexican Museumhttp://www.mexicanmuseum.org
Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CAhttp://www.mingei.org
Musee Dapper, Parishttp://www.dapper.com.fr
Musee de quai Branly, Parishttp://www.quaibranly.fr
Museum of African Art, New York, NYhttp://www.africanart.org
Museum of Craft and Folk Arthttp://www.mocfa.org
Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NMhttp://www.moifa.org
Museum Nusantara, Netherlandshttp://www.nusantara-delft.nl
National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.http://www.nmafa.si.edu
National Museum of Ethnology (Museum Volken Kunde), Netherlandshttp://www.rmv.nl
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CAhttp://www.nortonsimon.org/home_flash.asp
Oakland Museum of Californiahttp://www.museumca.org
Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CAhttp://www.pacificasiamuseum.org
Peabody Museumhttp://www.peabody.harvard.edu/title.html
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Englandhttp://www.prm.ox.ac.uk
Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgiumhttp://www.africamuseum.be
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WAhttp://www.seattleartmuseum.org
Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles, CAhttp://www.southwestmuseum.org
Textile Museumhttp://www.textilemuseum.org
Tropen Museum (Tropical Museum), Amsterdam, Netherlandshttp://tropenmuseum.nl
UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, CAhttp://www.fowler.ucla.edu/incEngine
University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, PAhttp://www.museum.upenn.edu
Wereld Museum, Rotterdamhttp://www.wereldmuseum.nl
Thursday, January 15, 2009
SKINNER PAST TRIBAL ART AUCTIONS - View Online.
http://www.skinnerinc.com/asp/searchresults.asp?pg=1&st=D&sale_no=2408
http://www.skinnerinc.com/asp/searchresults.asp?pg=1&st=D&sale_no=2376
http://www.skinnerinc.com/asp/searchresults.asp?pg=1&st=D&sale_no=2346
http://www.skinnerinc.com/asp/searchresults.asp?pg=1&st=D&sale_no=2237
http://www.skinnerinc.com/asp/searchresults.asp?pg=1&st=D&sale_no=2209
http://www.skinnerinc.com/content/pastauctions.asp?fam=3
BONHAMS - USA
http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=EUR&Screen=AfricanandOceanic
SOTHEBY'S - NEW YORK
http://browse.sothebys.com/?&cat=1&event_id=29056&g=1&i=1&sale_id=N08510&nb=1&dp=Tribal&is_past=1
Hawaiian Necklace sold for : USD62.500
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Artist Profile: Joan Miro (Note: There should be an accent over the 'o' in Miro)
Joan Miro Ferra was an influential 20th century painter, sculptor, ceramicist and printmaker, who was born in 1893 in the Catalan region of Spain, near Barcelona. He began drawing as a young boy, and later attended a business school, as well as La Lonja School of Fine Arts. At the latter school, he was encouraged by two teachers; one encouraged him to revive the spirit of primitive Catalan art, combining it with modern discoveries and techniques. (This was in the beginning of the 20th century, at the time modern art was just beginning in Europe, and the creative climate was energetic and progressive.) As a youth he was exposed to the rich folklore of Catalonia, which later influenced his images, such as how he saw all natural forms as beings, including pebbles and trees. He was also exposed to complete interiors of ninth to twelfth century fescoed churches in visits to the Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona, with their relatively crude execution and their simple, flat and cartoon-like imagery. They also used primary colors, all heavily outlined in black, with a darkly shaded surrounding field, as well as the also modern treatment of space as a flat surface rather than the traditional illusion of depth in an image (perspective, etc.). All of these elements can be seen in Miro's work, as well as the use of differences of scale, where one form is disproportionately larger than others, a method often used by children when they make the objects most important to them the biggest objects in the image. --> -->
After 3 years of business school, Miro took a job as an accounting clerk in a drugstore, which was the type of position his parents chose for him. He was overworked there, and became seriously ill, verging on a 'nervous breakdown,' followed by a bout of typhoid fever. His parents then took him to their new country farm, Montroig, in a secluded village in Catalonia. The state of his health caused his parents to allow him to do what he most wanted to do - paint. He attended the Academy Gali in Barcelona (a free-spirited academy with the influence of contemporary foreign painters, where there was also interest in literature and music). There individual expression was encouraged; Miro also learned to draw by the sense of touch alone, rather than by sight. At this time (around 1915), Dada was beginning, and Miro began reading avant garde Surrealist poets such as Apollinaire and Pierre Reverdy. He met Josep Llorens y Artigas, who was to become a lifelong friend, and with whom he was to collaborate in pottery projects in the years to come. Miro was also influenced by Fauvism (specifically Matisse) and Cubism, which started in the early years of the 20th century, and at first painted still lifes. (Spain has a historical tradition of mystical still lifes, which combine commonplace objects with eerie lighting against total blackness.) From 1915 to 1918 he painted nudes, then portraits, then landscapes. At this point he began "geometricizing" the forms, and used colors independently of their local color (like the Fauves, who used bright colors not seen in nature). He also began searching for signs and symbols to represent humans and animals in tension or movement. His two biggest influences when young had been Cezanne and Van Gogh, as well as other French artists. The Dalmau Gallery in Barcelona was a gathering place for foreign visitors; here Miro met Francis Picabia, a Dadist painter. --> -->
Miro's work had gone through a period of free expressiveness; he now decided to tighten up somewhat, doing landscapes until 1921-22. His best known work from this period is The Farm, a view of his parents' farm. The work done during this time shows minute details, using the precision of a naive primitive painter. At this time, and all his life, he was influenced by his Catalan heritage, such as the decorated Catalan pottery, and the Catalan murals which were restored in the 1920's, and painted in flat patterns in a folk style. He was also at this time beginning to be influenced by Surrealism (which began in the 1920's), and his work now took on a more spare look (paring down to essentials).
In 1919 he took his first trip to Paris, visiting Picasso in his studio. The painters Francis Picabia, Salvador Dali, Antoni Tapies, and the architect Antoni Gaudi were also born in Catalonia. Although Picasso was born in Malaga, in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was influenced by Catalan art. In Miro's life, there were three important places: Montroig (in Catalonia), Barcelona and Paris. (Catalonia is located in the northeast part of Spain, close to France, and Catalan culture is very close to the culture of the south of France. The Catalan people have always been a very independent people, holding fast to their language and traditions.) --> -->
One year later, he visited Paris again, meeting Surrealist poets Pierre Reverdy and Tristan Tzara. At this time he attended the first Dada demonstration in Paris. And finally, he moved to Paris, at an exciting time for young artists, who shared a supportive friendship. In 1923, there was a big change in Miro's art, moving toward more sign-like forms (i.e., like hieroglyphs), geometric shapes and an overall rhythm. There was also a move toward a more overall composition, with The Harlequin's Carnival of 1924-25. This overall type of composition was later used by Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Arshile Gorky and other modernists; rather than using a focal point such as that used in traditional painting, the composition encompassed the entire picture surface equally in all places. His forms included cats, butterflies, mannequins, and Catalan peasants, and there was visual movement in his images. Surrealism began at this time, with the writer Andre Breton issuing the Surrealist Manifesto. Surrealism was supposed to be a fusion of reality and the dream, a sort-of "super" reality. Breton felt that Miro's work had an innocence and freedom about it. Miro showed his work in Surrealist exhibitions, and was influenced especially by the Surrealist poets, who in their quest to tap the unconscious mind played games like the "exquisite corpse" in order to compose poems. Exquisite corpse was a technique where a dictionary was passed around in a group of poets, who would each choose a word randomly from it. Whatever words came up, they would organize into a poem; this is how the phrase "exquisite corpse" was created. They also used the techniques of psychic automatism (like free association), and "systematic derangement of senses." Miro and other painters (such as Andre Masson) worked out a way to transfer these techniques to their visual medium, using their dreams and visual free association. Miro painted about 100 paintings from his dreams at this time; this was his most Surrealist period. He also illustrated Surrealist poems in collaborations with poets. --> -->
Another concept introduced by the Dadaists was the element of chance or accident in art. They would start with a splotch of fluid, then add to it to make a painting. "The painter works like the poet; first the word, then the thought," is a quote that tries to describe how artists and poets may see or think of a concrete image or word, before they have formulated the idea or "symbolism" behind it. At this time, Miro was influenced by the work of Francis Picabia and Giorgio de Chirico. Although he exhibited with the Surrealists, and was friends with many of them, he never submitted himself totally to their movement, and did not sign the Surrealist Manifesto, perhaps because of the radical political activities of the Surrealists, who were also very interested in the psychological ideas of Freud and Jung.
In 1927 and 1928, Miro painted figures derived from Catalan folk art. In 1928 he began painting images based on postcards of some Dutch interiors he had seen in Holland, by such painters as Jan Steen. The images he worked from were crowded with forms; he gradually simplified the forms and stripped the image down greatly, using geometric divisions and curving movements in the compositions. At this time he moved further away from his points of departure, and began using unusual sources, such as a diesel motor, influenced by Surrealist thinking. From 1928 to 1929 he produced a number of collages; in Paris he had moved closer to Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, Paul Eluard and Jean Arp, so was influenced more by the work of these Surrealist painters and one poet. Max Ernst in particular is known for his collages. In Surrealist art there were two tendencies: the representational imagery of Dali and Magritte, and the more abstracted images of Masson and Miro, though both were affected by Surrealist ideas of anti-logic and the subconscious; and Dali's and Magritte's images, though painted in a highly realistic fashion, depict objects and scenes which do not appear in the rational world, such as a train coming through a fireplace into a room, or melting clocks. --> -->
By 1929, Miro had finished the first phase of his art-making, and he began to question and reappraise his work during the following 10 years, which were a struggle for him, financially and artistically. He began experimenting with materials - doing papiers colles and collages, using pictures of ordinary objects such as household utensils, machines, and real nails, string, etc. This period of experimentation helped him to drop any lingering traditional practices, and eliminate usual habits of working. By using objects of no significance, artists are able to concentrate on the abstract qualities of objects, rather than their associated meanings or emotions, allowing for more formal freedom; the viewer also is less able to attach literal meanings to the images. These "neutral" subjects with little aesthetic value or significance take the attention away from subject matter and toward the forms and content in the image. After creating these collages, Miro would make a painting of the collage - transferring a flat collage image onto the equally flat canvas. These paintings from the collages are highly refined and strongly graphic images, and even though they contain no identifiable subject matter, the paintings do contain content, or meaning. Although Miro is often characterized as an abstract painter, he himself considered that he was not - he even felt it an insult to call his work abstract, since he claimed that every form in his images was based on something in the external world, just simplified into his characteristic biomorphic shapes and curving lines. --> -->
In the 1930's, conflict was active around the world, in particular the Spanish Civil War and the beginnings of World War II. Many atrocities occurred during the Spanish Civil War, inflicted by Franco's fascist forces, as depicted by Picasso in his famous Guernica. Although Miro was not a political artist, his forms during this time depict a certain brutality, with distortions and garish color. He created a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the Paris Exposition of 1937, called The Reaper.
In 1940 and '41, he began his well known series of 22 Constellations, which consist of black dots representing stars on a white ground, using gouache and thinned oil on paper. These are very intricate works, with every part of the canvas activated. The carefully placed dots create a 'jumping' or 'dancing' sense of movement, even a "connect the dots" feeling. They remind me of Mondrian's late work of the 1940's, when he discovered American jazz - Broadway Boogie-Woogie of 1947, which has the same visual movement, and a cool, dancing quality of the little squares. However, Miro's work tends toward more of a cosmic awareness - these are stars, rather than just abstracted dots (painted poetry). --> -->
Miro stayed in Spain during World War II, his work being influenced by the night, music and stars. His forms became even more abstracted, and he used a number of techniques in his work, for example whenever lines intersected, there was a splash of primary color; when red and black overlap there is yellow. He gave the works evocative titles such as The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers. In 1942 he began his interest in engraving and ceramics (with his friend Artigas, a highly skilled potter), and in 1944 he returned to painting, now adding a calligraphic quality to his images. By now he was beginning to gain international fame, due to his 1941 retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and his presence in the International Surrealist Exhibition of 1947 in Paris, organized by Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton. That year he was invited to do a mural commission for a hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was 30 feet long. In 1950 and '51 he did another mural for the Graduate Center at Harvard, which consisted of loosely squared blocks of color combined with black lines and small areas of pure color. These elements form cartoonish figures. (This mural was later replaced by Miro's ceramic mural.) During the 1940's he also painted some "stick figures," and in the 1950's his images contained forms that were almost like primitive pictographs. In his paintings, forms often do not touch the edges of the picture area - most are an even distance away from the edges, with perhaps one small element touching the edge of the canvas at the top or elsewhere. His backgrounds also have become more mottled now, rather than flat areas of paint, which gives the images more of a sense of visual depth. Despite not contacting the edges completely, his forms at this time still manage to have an overall type of composition. He also began painting ceramics during this time. --> -->
After the War, after having been in seclusion, he spent time with artist friends Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder and Yves Tanguy in New York. He was influenced by his time in America, particularly by life in the City of New York, which consisted of bright lights and a kind of sensory bombardment, sometimes stressful. In 1948 he returned to Paris and had several exhibitions. Some of his works now are carefully composed and executed, and others are deliberately spontaneous and experimental. In the early 1950's he began to merge these two tendencies in his work, with a painterly background, linear black and white forms, and touches of pure color. During the 1950's he developed a brand new approach, using the painting methods of primitive man, making painted and carved forms. At this time, he had his lifelong dream of a "big studio" made a reality, and he surrounded himself with all of the objects he had collected over years in walks, such as polished stones, driftwood, seashells, horseshoes, farm implements, etc. This also reflected the Surrealist interest in special, magical objects, like talismans. Their simple forms encouraged the simple forms in his work. --> -->
From 1945 to '50, he had carved small figurs in clay, like primitive fertility goddesses, and simple vases of bird and head forms. Between 1954 and 1960 he produced his greatest ceramic output, with the aid of Josep Llorens y Artigas, who provided technical expertise for his creations. They had the use of a very large kiln for Miro to bake his increasingly large ceramic forms, which he created in individual parts to be reconnected after firing. They wanted to produce ceramic works which were not simply paintings transferred to ceramic, but in deference to the ceramic medium itself. Their big project was to convert Miro's art objects to the ceramic medium. They started with large stone blocks suggested by natural rock formations in the countryside, then did small pebble and egg forms. They made vases, dishes and bowls, and added forms to these, to produce objects of no practical use. Finally, he created entirely invented forms. They developed a highly refined glazing process, using 3 to 8 firings for each piece. Because of the unpredictability of a kiln, pieces may fall apart or bring unexpected results. The use of the raku method of pottery, baking with a wood fire, produces effects not seen with gas or electric kilns. Miro learned to control these whims of the kiln to a great degree, and there resulted 232 pieces, which he sent to Paris in 1956 for a show at the Galerie Maeght. The effect of this show in the gallery was powerful, having a strong effect on viewers - his primitive forms standing and sitting throughout, like a paleolithic forest. Miro also produced his first bronze sculpture at this time. --> -->
In 1955 he was commissioned to decorate UNESCO's new building in Paris; he made a ceramic design in keeping with the building's design. For this project, he and Artigas inspected the cave paintings of Altamira and Romanesque frescoes in the Barcelona Museum, as well as the architect Gaudi's decorations. Miro was awarded the Guggenheim Prize in 1958 for this work.
In 1959 he returned to painting again, and his work was now informed by his experiences in other mediums. In 1962 he painted Mural Painting III, an extremely spare image having a solid yellow-orange surface, with two small black dots and three irregular lines, a spare, painterly image. During the 1960's he devoted more time to the mediums of printmaking, ceramics, murals and sculpture. One reason for his interest in these other mediums was that they involved collaborating with other people, rather than the solitary activity of painting. Also, printmaking's production of many images rather than just one original appealed to him. --> -->
Miro's influence on the art of the later 20th century is great; some artists who were influenced by him include Robert Motherwell, Alexander Calder, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Roberto Matta, Mark Rothko, and expressive abstract painters. Perhaps the original color field painter was Matisse, and perhaps Miro's use of a large field of color was due to Matisse's influence. Painters who came afterward who use the color field include Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski and Morris Louis. Miro's vast fields of color also introduced the idea of "empty" space being as valuable as occupied space in painting. Here is a 1958 Miro quote from Twentieth-Century Artists on Art: "The spectacle of the sky overwhelms me. I'm overwhelmed when I see, in an immense sky, the crescent of the moon, or the sun. There, in my pictures, tiny forms in huge empty spaces. Empty spaces, empty horizons, empty plains - everything which is bare has always greatly impressed me." His characteristic biomorphic form was also influential in 20th century abstraction, with Alexander Calder and others. Miro had a unique place between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, influencing the New York School of painters in the 1940's and '50's. --> -->
Throughout his life, Miro worked in several printmaking processes, including engraving, lithography and etching, as well as the use of stencils (called pochoir). He stated that printmaking made his paintings richer, and gave him new ideas for his work. In 1967, Miro was introduced to carborundum (silicon carbide engraving); combining this technique with other printmaking processes, he was able to produce images that rivaled the original qualities of painting. He continued to explore the carborundum aquatints the rest of his life, and in 1970 the Museum of Modern Art in New York held an exhibition specially devoted to these prints. In his later years, he spent most of his time doing etchings, doing large-scale aquatints and book illustrations. Much of his work can be found in the Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art in New York. During the 1970's he continued to receive wide acclaim, and had major exhibitions in the Musee National d'Art Moderne, and other major art institutions in Europe and America. In 1980, King Juan Carlos of Spain awarded Miro the Gold Medal for Fine Arts. In 1983, the year of his 90th birthday (and his death), there were birthday celebrations for him in New York and Barcelona.
In 1972, the Fundacio Joan Miro, Centre d'Estudis d'Art Contemporani (Joan Miro Foundation) was legally constituted in Barcelona. The museum opened in 1976, with a collection of Miro's drawings. A large selection of Miro's paintings, sculptures, textiles and prints are exhibited there, as well as exhibitions of other modern and contemporary artists. --> -->
In the book Painters on Painting, Miro is quoted in an interview of 1947, saying that his favorite schools of painting are the cave painters - the primitives. He claimed at one point that since the age of cave painting, art has done nothing but degenerate. He also expressed a liking for Odilon Redon, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky for their "esprit." For artists of "pure" painting, he preferred Picasso and Matisse, and felt that both of their points of view are important. He added that the direction painting ought to take was to "rediscover the sources of human feeling." He also stated that he made no distinction between painting and poetry, and that painting is "like making love - it is an exchange of blood, a total embrace - reckless and defenseless." He said his aim was to help painting advance beyond the easel, to push its limits; to ceate a response first of physical sensation, then a great impact on the psyche of the viewer. He considered pure abstraction to be an absurdity, and empty. Like Gaudi, Miro was fascinated with the Catalonian language; he demanded in his will that his funeral be held in Catalonian style with the obituary written in the Catalan language. --> -->
Miro's images, which came from his memory, the unconscious, dreams, and transformative modernist art processes, are at once childlike, innocent and sophisticated. His two poles of existence, Catalonia and Paris, reflect this combination of rural and cosmopolitan. His forms (creatures such as people, birds, insects and animals) are whimsical and expressive, as well as inventive. The ultimate meaning of all of his abstracted realities may not be known, but I think it's safe to say that they all had a meaning for him, in his childhood, in his dreams, and in his life.
Joan Miro Ferra was an influential 20th century painter, sculptor, ceramicist and printmaker, who was born in 1893 in the Catalan region of Spain, near Barcelona. He began drawing as a young boy, and later attended a business school, as well as La Lonja School of Fine Arts. At the latter school, he was encouraged by two teachers; one encouraged him to revive the spirit of primitive Catalan art, combining it with modern discoveries and techniques. (This was in the beginning of the 20th century, at the time modern art was just beginning in Europe, and the creative climate was energetic and progressive.) As a youth he was exposed to the rich folklore of Catalonia, which later influenced his images, such as how he saw all natural forms as beings, including pebbles and trees. He was also exposed to complete interiors of ninth to twelfth century fescoed churches in visits to the Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona, with their relatively crude execution and their simple, flat and cartoon-like imagery. They also used primary colors, all heavily outlined in black, with a darkly shaded surrounding field, as well as the also modern treatment of space as a flat surface rather than the traditional illusion of depth in an image (perspective, etc.). All of these elements can be seen in Miro's work, as well as the use of differences of scale, where one form is disproportionately larger than others, a method often used by children when they make the objects most important to them the biggest objects in the image. --> -->
After 3 years of business school, Miro took a job as an accounting clerk in a drugstore, which was the type of position his parents chose for him. He was overworked there, and became seriously ill, verging on a 'nervous breakdown,' followed by a bout of typhoid fever. His parents then took him to their new country farm, Montroig, in a secluded village in Catalonia. The state of his health caused his parents to allow him to do what he most wanted to do - paint. He attended the Academy Gali in Barcelona (a free-spirited academy with the influence of contemporary foreign painters, where there was also interest in literature and music). There individual expression was encouraged; Miro also learned to draw by the sense of touch alone, rather than by sight. At this time (around 1915), Dada was beginning, and Miro began reading avant garde Surrealist poets such as Apollinaire and Pierre Reverdy. He met Josep Llorens y Artigas, who was to become a lifelong friend, and with whom he was to collaborate in pottery projects in the years to come. Miro was also influenced by Fauvism (specifically Matisse) and Cubism, which started in the early years of the 20th century, and at first painted still lifes. (Spain has a historical tradition of mystical still lifes, which combine commonplace objects with eerie lighting against total blackness.) From 1915 to 1918 he painted nudes, then portraits, then landscapes. At this point he began "geometricizing" the forms, and used colors independently of their local color (like the Fauves, who used bright colors not seen in nature). He also began searching for signs and symbols to represent humans and animals in tension or movement. His two biggest influences when young had been Cezanne and Van Gogh, as well as other French artists. The Dalmau Gallery in Barcelona was a gathering place for foreign visitors; here Miro met Francis Picabia, a Dadist painter. --> -->
Miro's work had gone through a period of free expressiveness; he now decided to tighten up somewhat, doing landscapes until 1921-22. His best known work from this period is The Farm, a view of his parents' farm. The work done during this time shows minute details, using the precision of a naive primitive painter. At this time, and all his life, he was influenced by his Catalan heritage, such as the decorated Catalan pottery, and the Catalan murals which were restored in the 1920's, and painted in flat patterns in a folk style. He was also at this time beginning to be influenced by Surrealism (which began in the 1920's), and his work now took on a more spare look (paring down to essentials).
In 1919 he took his first trip to Paris, visiting Picasso in his studio. The painters Francis Picabia, Salvador Dali, Antoni Tapies, and the architect Antoni Gaudi were also born in Catalonia. Although Picasso was born in Malaga, in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was influenced by Catalan art. In Miro's life, there were three important places: Montroig (in Catalonia), Barcelona and Paris. (Catalonia is located in the northeast part of Spain, close to France, and Catalan culture is very close to the culture of the south of France. The Catalan people have always been a very independent people, holding fast to their language and traditions.) --> -->
One year later, he visited Paris again, meeting Surrealist poets Pierre Reverdy and Tristan Tzara. At this time he attended the first Dada demonstration in Paris. And finally, he moved to Paris, at an exciting time for young artists, who shared a supportive friendship. In 1923, there was a big change in Miro's art, moving toward more sign-like forms (i.e., like hieroglyphs), geometric shapes and an overall rhythm. There was also a move toward a more overall composition, with The Harlequin's Carnival of 1924-25. This overall type of composition was later used by Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Arshile Gorky and other modernists; rather than using a focal point such as that used in traditional painting, the composition encompassed the entire picture surface equally in all places. His forms included cats, butterflies, mannequins, and Catalan peasants, and there was visual movement in his images. Surrealism began at this time, with the writer Andre Breton issuing the Surrealist Manifesto. Surrealism was supposed to be a fusion of reality and the dream, a sort-of "super" reality. Breton felt that Miro's work had an innocence and freedom about it. Miro showed his work in Surrealist exhibitions, and was influenced especially by the Surrealist poets, who in their quest to tap the unconscious mind played games like the "exquisite corpse" in order to compose poems. Exquisite corpse was a technique where a dictionary was passed around in a group of poets, who would each choose a word randomly from it. Whatever words came up, they would organize into a poem; this is how the phrase "exquisite corpse" was created. They also used the techniques of psychic automatism (like free association), and "systematic derangement of senses." Miro and other painters (such as Andre Masson) worked out a way to transfer these techniques to their visual medium, using their dreams and visual free association. Miro painted about 100 paintings from his dreams at this time; this was his most Surrealist period. He also illustrated Surrealist poems in collaborations with poets. --> -->
Another concept introduced by the Dadaists was the element of chance or accident in art. They would start with a splotch of fluid, then add to it to make a painting. "The painter works like the poet; first the word, then the thought," is a quote that tries to describe how artists and poets may see or think of a concrete image or word, before they have formulated the idea or "symbolism" behind it. At this time, Miro was influenced by the work of Francis Picabia and Giorgio de Chirico. Although he exhibited with the Surrealists, and was friends with many of them, he never submitted himself totally to their movement, and did not sign the Surrealist Manifesto, perhaps because of the radical political activities of the Surrealists, who were also very interested in the psychological ideas of Freud and Jung.
In 1927 and 1928, Miro painted figures derived from Catalan folk art. In 1928 he began painting images based on postcards of some Dutch interiors he had seen in Holland, by such painters as Jan Steen. The images he worked from were crowded with forms; he gradually simplified the forms and stripped the image down greatly, using geometric divisions and curving movements in the compositions. At this time he moved further away from his points of departure, and began using unusual sources, such as a diesel motor, influenced by Surrealist thinking. From 1928 to 1929 he produced a number of collages; in Paris he had moved closer to Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, Paul Eluard and Jean Arp, so was influenced more by the work of these Surrealist painters and one poet. Max Ernst in particular is known for his collages. In Surrealist art there were two tendencies: the representational imagery of Dali and Magritte, and the more abstracted images of Masson and Miro, though both were affected by Surrealist ideas of anti-logic and the subconscious; and Dali's and Magritte's images, though painted in a highly realistic fashion, depict objects and scenes which do not appear in the rational world, such as a train coming through a fireplace into a room, or melting clocks. --> -->
By 1929, Miro had finished the first phase of his art-making, and he began to question and reappraise his work during the following 10 years, which were a struggle for him, financially and artistically. He began experimenting with materials - doing papiers colles and collages, using pictures of ordinary objects such as household utensils, machines, and real nails, string, etc. This period of experimentation helped him to drop any lingering traditional practices, and eliminate usual habits of working. By using objects of no significance, artists are able to concentrate on the abstract qualities of objects, rather than their associated meanings or emotions, allowing for more formal freedom; the viewer also is less able to attach literal meanings to the images. These "neutral" subjects with little aesthetic value or significance take the attention away from subject matter and toward the forms and content in the image. After creating these collages, Miro would make a painting of the collage - transferring a flat collage image onto the equally flat canvas. These paintings from the collages are highly refined and strongly graphic images, and even though they contain no identifiable subject matter, the paintings do contain content, or meaning. Although Miro is often characterized as an abstract painter, he himself considered that he was not - he even felt it an insult to call his work abstract, since he claimed that every form in his images was based on something in the external world, just simplified into his characteristic biomorphic shapes and curving lines. --> -->
In the 1930's, conflict was active around the world, in particular the Spanish Civil War and the beginnings of World War II. Many atrocities occurred during the Spanish Civil War, inflicted by Franco's fascist forces, as depicted by Picasso in his famous Guernica. Although Miro was not a political artist, his forms during this time depict a certain brutality, with distortions and garish color. He created a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the Paris Exposition of 1937, called The Reaper.
In 1940 and '41, he began his well known series of 22 Constellations, which consist of black dots representing stars on a white ground, using gouache and thinned oil on paper. These are very intricate works, with every part of the canvas activated. The carefully placed dots create a 'jumping' or 'dancing' sense of movement, even a "connect the dots" feeling. They remind me of Mondrian's late work of the 1940's, when he discovered American jazz - Broadway Boogie-Woogie of 1947, which has the same visual movement, and a cool, dancing quality of the little squares. However, Miro's work tends toward more of a cosmic awareness - these are stars, rather than just abstracted dots (painted poetry). --> -->
Miro stayed in Spain during World War II, his work being influenced by the night, music and stars. His forms became even more abstracted, and he used a number of techniques in his work, for example whenever lines intersected, there was a splash of primary color; when red and black overlap there is yellow. He gave the works evocative titles such as The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers. In 1942 he began his interest in engraving and ceramics (with his friend Artigas, a highly skilled potter), and in 1944 he returned to painting, now adding a calligraphic quality to his images. By now he was beginning to gain international fame, due to his 1941 retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and his presence in the International Surrealist Exhibition of 1947 in Paris, organized by Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton. That year he was invited to do a mural commission for a hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was 30 feet long. In 1950 and '51 he did another mural for the Graduate Center at Harvard, which consisted of loosely squared blocks of color combined with black lines and small areas of pure color. These elements form cartoonish figures. (This mural was later replaced by Miro's ceramic mural.) During the 1940's he also painted some "stick figures," and in the 1950's his images contained forms that were almost like primitive pictographs. In his paintings, forms often do not touch the edges of the picture area - most are an even distance away from the edges, with perhaps one small element touching the edge of the canvas at the top or elsewhere. His backgrounds also have become more mottled now, rather than flat areas of paint, which gives the images more of a sense of visual depth. Despite not contacting the edges completely, his forms at this time still manage to have an overall type of composition. He also began painting ceramics during this time. --> -->
After the War, after having been in seclusion, he spent time with artist friends Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder and Yves Tanguy in New York. He was influenced by his time in America, particularly by life in the City of New York, which consisted of bright lights and a kind of sensory bombardment, sometimes stressful. In 1948 he returned to Paris and had several exhibitions. Some of his works now are carefully composed and executed, and others are deliberately spontaneous and experimental. In the early 1950's he began to merge these two tendencies in his work, with a painterly background, linear black and white forms, and touches of pure color. During the 1950's he developed a brand new approach, using the painting methods of primitive man, making painted and carved forms. At this time, he had his lifelong dream of a "big studio" made a reality, and he surrounded himself with all of the objects he had collected over years in walks, such as polished stones, driftwood, seashells, horseshoes, farm implements, etc. This also reflected the Surrealist interest in special, magical objects, like talismans. Their simple forms encouraged the simple forms in his work. --> -->
From 1945 to '50, he had carved small figurs in clay, like primitive fertility goddesses, and simple vases of bird and head forms. Between 1954 and 1960 he produced his greatest ceramic output, with the aid of Josep Llorens y Artigas, who provided technical expertise for his creations. They had the use of a very large kiln for Miro to bake his increasingly large ceramic forms, which he created in individual parts to be reconnected after firing. They wanted to produce ceramic works which were not simply paintings transferred to ceramic, but in deference to the ceramic medium itself. Their big project was to convert Miro's art objects to the ceramic medium. They started with large stone blocks suggested by natural rock formations in the countryside, then did small pebble and egg forms. They made vases, dishes and bowls, and added forms to these, to produce objects of no practical use. Finally, he created entirely invented forms. They developed a highly refined glazing process, using 3 to 8 firings for each piece. Because of the unpredictability of a kiln, pieces may fall apart or bring unexpected results. The use of the raku method of pottery, baking with a wood fire, produces effects not seen with gas or electric kilns. Miro learned to control these whims of the kiln to a great degree, and there resulted 232 pieces, which he sent to Paris in 1956 for a show at the Galerie Maeght. The effect of this show in the gallery was powerful, having a strong effect on viewers - his primitive forms standing and sitting throughout, like a paleolithic forest. Miro also produced his first bronze sculpture at this time. --> -->
In 1955 he was commissioned to decorate UNESCO's new building in Paris; he made a ceramic design in keeping with the building's design. For this project, he and Artigas inspected the cave paintings of Altamira and Romanesque frescoes in the Barcelona Museum, as well as the architect Gaudi's decorations. Miro was awarded the Guggenheim Prize in 1958 for this work.
In 1959 he returned to painting again, and his work was now informed by his experiences in other mediums. In 1962 he painted Mural Painting III, an extremely spare image having a solid yellow-orange surface, with two small black dots and three irregular lines, a spare, painterly image. During the 1960's he devoted more time to the mediums of printmaking, ceramics, murals and sculpture. One reason for his interest in these other mediums was that they involved collaborating with other people, rather than the solitary activity of painting. Also, printmaking's production of many images rather than just one original appealed to him. --> -->
Miro's influence on the art of the later 20th century is great; some artists who were influenced by him include Robert Motherwell, Alexander Calder, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Roberto Matta, Mark Rothko, and expressive abstract painters. Perhaps the original color field painter was Matisse, and perhaps Miro's use of a large field of color was due to Matisse's influence. Painters who came afterward who use the color field include Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski and Morris Louis. Miro's vast fields of color also introduced the idea of "empty" space being as valuable as occupied space in painting. Here is a 1958 Miro quote from Twentieth-Century Artists on Art: "The spectacle of the sky overwhelms me. I'm overwhelmed when I see, in an immense sky, the crescent of the moon, or the sun. There, in my pictures, tiny forms in huge empty spaces. Empty spaces, empty horizons, empty plains - everything which is bare has always greatly impressed me." His characteristic biomorphic form was also influential in 20th century abstraction, with Alexander Calder and others. Miro had a unique place between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, influencing the New York School of painters in the 1940's and '50's. --> -->
Throughout his life, Miro worked in several printmaking processes, including engraving, lithography and etching, as well as the use of stencils (called pochoir). He stated that printmaking made his paintings richer, and gave him new ideas for his work. In 1967, Miro was introduced to carborundum (silicon carbide engraving); combining this technique with other printmaking processes, he was able to produce images that rivaled the original qualities of painting. He continued to explore the carborundum aquatints the rest of his life, and in 1970 the Museum of Modern Art in New York held an exhibition specially devoted to these prints. In his later years, he spent most of his time doing etchings, doing large-scale aquatints and book illustrations. Much of his work can be found in the Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art in New York. During the 1970's he continued to receive wide acclaim, and had major exhibitions in the Musee National d'Art Moderne, and other major art institutions in Europe and America. In 1980, King Juan Carlos of Spain awarded Miro the Gold Medal for Fine Arts. In 1983, the year of his 90th birthday (and his death), there were birthday celebrations for him in New York and Barcelona.
In 1972, the Fundacio Joan Miro, Centre d'Estudis d'Art Contemporani (Joan Miro Foundation) was legally constituted in Barcelona. The museum opened in 1976, with a collection of Miro's drawings. A large selection of Miro's paintings, sculptures, textiles and prints are exhibited there, as well as exhibitions of other modern and contemporary artists. --> -->
In the book Painters on Painting, Miro is quoted in an interview of 1947, saying that his favorite schools of painting are the cave painters - the primitives. He claimed at one point that since the age of cave painting, art has done nothing but degenerate. He also expressed a liking for Odilon Redon, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky for their "esprit." For artists of "pure" painting, he preferred Picasso and Matisse, and felt that both of their points of view are important. He added that the direction painting ought to take was to "rediscover the sources of human feeling." He also stated that he made no distinction between painting and poetry, and that painting is "like making love - it is an exchange of blood, a total embrace - reckless and defenseless." He said his aim was to help painting advance beyond the easel, to push its limits; to ceate a response first of physical sensation, then a great impact on the psyche of the viewer. He considered pure abstraction to be an absurdity, and empty. Like Gaudi, Miro was fascinated with the Catalonian language; he demanded in his will that his funeral be held in Catalonian style with the obituary written in the Catalan language. --> -->
Miro's images, which came from his memory, the unconscious, dreams, and transformative modernist art processes, are at once childlike, innocent and sophisticated. His two poles of existence, Catalonia and Paris, reflect this combination of rural and cosmopolitan. His forms (creatures such as people, birds, insects and animals) are whimsical and expressive, as well as inventive. The ultimate meaning of all of his abstracted realities may not be known, but I think it's safe to say that they all had a meaning for him, in his childhood, in his dreams, and in his life.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
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