Artwork by Joan Miró, Esencias de la tierra y proverbios del mar (1970)
about Joan Miró
Barcelona, 1893
Joan Miró (Barcelona, 1893, Palma de Mallorca, 1993) was a painter, sculptor, engraver and ceramicist. Joan Miró's works collect motifs drawn from the realm of memory and the subconscious, and are among the most original of the 20th century. He studied at the School of Fine Arts and at the Galí Academy. In 1920 he moved to Paris, meeting Pablo Picasso, where, under the influence of surrealist poets and writers, he matured his style. Miró starts from memory, fantasy and the irrational to create works that are visual transpositions of surrealist poetry.
These dream visions often carry a humorous or fantastic vision, containing distorted images of animals playing, twisted organic shapes or strange geometric constructions. Later, Miró produced more ethereal works which organic forms and figures are reduced to abstract dots, lines, and explosions of color. After the start of World War II, in 1940, Miró returned to Spain, where he experimented with other artistic media, such as engravings and lithographs, to which he dedicated himself in the 1950s. He also made watercolors, pastels, collages, and painting on copper, sculpture, theatrical scenography and tapestry cartoons.