More on Miró- Part 2

Vol. 1 Issue 10

As I said last time I wanted to investigate this artist's stuff within the context of the Philosophy of Art. Well, this did not happen. I'm posting the second half of the paper from last week. I put all my effort into this, and now there's no time for the philosophy thing. 

I'm in my last week of classes for the semester, which means I have work due in all of them. Turns out a Master's Degree is actually quite difficult. By this time next week I'll have either completed all the work, or will have abandoned it and excepted whatever fate that action brings. Until then...

Over the next decade or so, 1946-1960, Miró’s work continues on an upward, even more abstract trajectory, and, he transitions from working on paper with various paints and turpentine as in Fig 4 in last weeks post, back to oils on canvases. All of his paintings from 1946 onwards exploit (in the best possible way) two elements that his earlier works did not, at least not as much, color and space. If it is not one, it is the other. Following the Constellations, Miró’s works becomes unmistakable indefinable as his own. As Malet puts it, “Miró speaks a language of his own which everybody can understand, but not repeat, since the speaker does not use any direct reference to the external world” (18). I would agree mostly with Malet, but I think the one direct reference of Miró’s work that does connect to the outside world are the work’s titles.

            Miró’s titles always seem to help connect the viewer to Miró’s concept of what the work may have been at least related to, or inspired by. The titles do not define what the works are about, but still, his titles never seem arbitrary, and for this reason they are very important to his works throughout his entire oeuvre. The titles add a degree of insight to the viewer’s perception that makes viewing the work a much deeper, interpretive and understandable experience than if they were all simply left untitled.

            No doubt the Constellations were colorful, but all Miró’s work post-Constellation era, in my opinion, is the era of Miró’s establishing his foundations as a Master Colorist. As his work and style progress, they becomes even less based on the reality of the world available to the human senses, as if this were even possible.

            After 1946 the works seems to emerge from a subconscious that has digested ideas taken in through the empirical reality of the human senses, transformed or transferred them into another realm somewhere in the vastness of existence, one that is governed by different sets of properties and laws than cannot be gauged by empiricism, put through some kinds of effects processors, then brought back to this world, put through some weird and wonderful filters inside Miró’s brain where the ideas are finally transformed into what they will be manifest as before he brings the ideas back out into the empirical world for us regular people to observe on canvas.

            By 1953 Miró was experiencing international recognition, particularly in the United States. He was commissioned in this year to paint a large canvas for the Guggenheim (Fig 5). This was his first departure from easel painting, and the first time that he painted directly to canvas without any kind of previous preparation, i.e. directly from his head (Penrose 120); here he “achieved a combination of spontaneous freedom with an impressive display of powerful forms” (Ibid).

            Between 1959-1960 Miró did over 100 paintings, including The Red Disc (Fig 6). This painting appears to give a macro-view of this inner universe from which Miró draws. The red disc being the focal point of the piece, exploited by its brilliant red color, it is like a planet floating in a universe, existing, for now, simultaneously with the  blackness that is the void: nothingness. But the red disc is not alone. It shares the space with the white, a representation of somethingness. The red disc bands together with the white to form a kind of gang in favor of existence, battling the black void’s attempt to annihilate.

            After the prolific year of 1959, Miró’s use of color and space becomes even more exaggerated. It is post-1960 when Miró verifies that he has firmly cemented his foundations as his work post-1960 categorically demonstrates his status as a Master Colorist. This the most exciting era of his work, and I believe his best.

            Blue II (Fig 7) from 1961 compared with Woman and Birds in the Night (Fig 9) from 1968 are shown to be polar opposites in some ways. Blue II plays with spacing and form, but obviously the emphasis here is on the color. It is almost as if Miró is showing off, saying, “look how amazing of a colorist I am. With just this one techinique, and nearly a single color alone I can sustain an entire triptych of paintings!” That being the Blue I-III series (Fig 8).

Woman and Birds is a drastic contrast the to the Blue series. Woman and Birds is almost devoid of color and relies on space, form, and the heavy use of black for its affect. In comparison to Miró’s representational realism of the 1920’s, or the Constellations series, the title of Woman and Birds seems almost arbitrary because there is not a glimmer of a woman or any birds; Malet says in this era of this work there is a ”disappearance of figure, a disappearance that was to become completely evident” (20).  For me, this is not a picture of woman or of birds, yet the title does help me at least understand the empirical concept that Miró was perhaps basing this painting on, an important function of many of Miró’s titles.

            Recalling the “artists” I mentioned at the opening of this paper, their stagnation, how they continue to create the same product over and over, never making anything new, how they fail to evolve and how their works fail to evolve, hopefully Miró’s whole operation now stands  in emphatic contrast. His ability to grow and develop, coupled with his seemingly limitless creativity and rigorous work ethic allow for any single piece, from any single era of his life or work to function in the capacity of identifying him definitely as an artist, and not as an “artist.” Like Picasso, a napkin signed by Miró could perhaps be considered an artwork because in the context of this life and work, according to a number of Art Theories that will be investigated in the next paper, his proven extraordinary talent has given him this ability.