JOAN MIRÓ

MIRÓ'S PRINTS

FORMIRO, PRINTMAKING WAS A TECHNIQUE, LIKE PAINTING OR SCULPTURE, RULED BY LAWS OF ITS OWN. FROMCHISEL TO DRY-POINT, FROM ETCHING TO AQUATINT, FROM SOFT VARNISH TO CARVING, THE ARTIST EXPERIMENTED EXHAUSTIVELY, INVENTING VARIATIONS AND TECHNIQUES WHICH HE OFTEN COMBINED, IN A PROCESS THAT WENT FROM THE FIG-URATIVE ART OF THE THIRTIES TO PURE ABSTRACTION.

MARlA LLU~SABORRAS ART CRITIC

print can have al1 the beauty much his own. It was like starting from combined, in a process that went from and dignity of a good painting," scratch and travelling a long road the figurative art of the thirties to pure wrote Joan Miró, and indeed, from engraving at the service of figur- abstraction; from the etching Dafnis i printmaking was an important aspect of ative art to that which explores the few Cloe (1933), with its painstaking tech- his art and made up a large part of his but sufficient formal resources, to cap- nique, to the resounding explosion of production, as a technique governed by ture the renovatory ideas of the art of this 1963, when he produced aquatints like laws of its own, just like painting and century. From chisel to dry-point, from Lluna i vent, Fons marí and L'ocell del sculpture. When he first took up print- etching to aquatint, from soft varnish to paradís, colour lithographs of great making, Miró was thirty-seven years old carving, the artist experimented exhaus- energy and power he called Dansa (bar- and had already made a name for him- tively, at the same time inventing varia- barous, nuptial fire-dancing), or else self as a painter with a language very tions and techniques which he often combinations of etching and aquatint in JOAN MIRÓ

AUTORETRA T. 1 938

such remarkable pieces as La cabellera borundum technique: "1 have been printmaking, became for Joan Miró an de Berenice or L'ocell del foc. (In 1928, spending a few days with Dutrou in Saint excellent source of human contact. He Miró had made eight "pochoirs", or Paul, and we experimented with the always kept himself to a limited group stencils, to illustrate a story by Lise new process you showed him. The re- of trusted artisans with whom he Hirst, Il était une petite pie. Six years sults are exciting and very beautiful. worked in an air of profound friendship, later, in 1934, he returned to the "po- The artist can express himself more first in Paris, in Louis Marcoussis's choir" procedure for the special number richly and freely, achieving a beautiful workshop, and also for many years in of the magazine D'ací i d'alla, and again texture and a stronger line. If you have the charismatic Lacouriere workshop. in the poster Aidez I'Espagne. no objection, 1 would like to make use Later on, with Hayter, in New York, he Miró's graphics speak as eloquently as of your procedure". reached the height of technical perfec- any of his work of his constant, bitter Some months later he wrote again: tion. After 1948, when Aimée Maeght, struggle against the facile. His mastery "These days 1 have been working with his dealer, became his main publisher, of the technique, rather than sinking Dutrou in Saint Paul and 1 realise more Miró produced a large quantity of into routine, opened new roads to crea- and more the richness and the new hori- graphic work: lithographs in Paris, in the tion for him, as we can see in this long zons your process brings to engraving. Mourlot Freres workshop, and after period of thirty years marked through- Never before had materials of such 1964 in the Adrien Maeght workshop out by the constant search for methods power been obtained. 1 can express myself with Robert Dutrou and René Le and processes that would make it possi- with a single outpouring of my spirit, Moigne. In Barcelona, he worked first ble to work faster while at the same without any hindrance and without with Enric Tormo (Barcelona series), time satisfying his wish for spontaneity being obstructed or slowed down by an and after 1968 with Jaume Soto of the and freshness. outworn technique with which 1 risk Polígrafa workshops. During the seven- Of Miró's constant searching we have deforming the free expression, the pu- ties he also worked with José Torralba ample evidence in a letter he wrote in rity and freshness of the final result". and Joan Barbara. 1968 to the excellent master engraver The work of the skilled engraver and One aspect that should not be forgotten Henri Goetz, the inventor of the car- stamper, which are fundamental to is printmaking's quality as a multiple GRAN PERSONATGE NEGRE. 1 938 1 'ANTIT~TEDE TZARA, 1 947

work, the possibility it gives the artist to tornes also dates from 1933, as do Alice tellations. Various tnals and versions of obtain various originals from a single Paalen's Sablier couché and Casse-nuit this self-portrait have survived on al1 plate, something which makes it acces- and he collaborated in the album, titled sorts of paper as well as on parchment sible to a larger number of people (it has by Paul Eluard, Solidarité, a protest and in one case even on canvas. On even been called, not without a certain against the Fascist powers in which signing it he wrote the name of Mar- measure of demagogy, "the democratic Kandinsky, Hayter, Masson, Picasso coussis next to his own, in recognition art"). Joan Miró was also well aware of and Tanguy also joined. of his friend's teaching and perfect co- this, and once said to Goetz, "from the By the end of the thirties he had earned llaboration. social and human point of view, the a name for himself as one of the most Black appears in al1 its intensity and print -even if produced in a limited important of the poets' collaborators, solidity in the series Barcelona and edition- can reach further than a paint- since rather than simply illustrate a drives Joan Miró to explore in depth in ing, which will always be religiously given poem, what he did was to create other lithographs the qualities of black guarded in the museum". the atmosphere, surreal and full of as a colour. At Mourlot Freres he pro- The artist was initiated to the world of myths, revealing deep-seated impulses. duced the striking Gran personatge ne- printmaking thanks to the poets, since In short, during these years Miró formu- gre and the Personatge sobre fons negre. it was Tristan Tzara who introduced lated a poetry of his own. Afterwards he continued to work with him to Louis Marcoussis when he sug- The period from 1937 to 1938 was to be black in the series of etchings he did gested to him that he illustrate his poem enormously productive, as if print- with Lacouriere, in which he looks for "L'arbre des voyageurs". It was 1930 making were the ideal medium to ex- the effects of black obtainable through and Miró made three prints in the Dada press an atmosphere of anguish, of ter- "morsure directe". From the sixties, spirit, using the lithographic technique ror -the panic of war- with the defor- we have yet another testimony of his for the first time. These were also the mation of bodies and objects; but he interest in black, the supreme colour, years of the Rue Blomet, when the also did this in the painting Natura in his use of the carborundum process workshop of his neighbour, Masson, morta del sabatot. To create this at- which Henri Goetz had introduced was port of cal1 for Antonin Artaud, mosphere he used the dry-point (El des- him to. Paul Eluard, Max Jacob, Michel Leiris, vetllament del gegant, La geganta or After World War 11, in 1947, when he Georges Limbour, André Malraux and, else the beautiful Serie negra i verme- was in the United States to work on a in general, al1 the Surrealists. Ila). 1938 is the year of L'autoretrat, the ceramic mural for a Cincinatti hotel, he Soon afterwards, he made his first last work he did at the workshop of met up with Stanley William Hayter etchings for Georges Hugnet's poem, "En- Marcoussis, who died soon afterwards. again, in New York, and immediately fances", at Marcoussis's workshop. In Miró covered, or rather transformed his started working in his "Taller 17" in 1933, commissioned by Yvon Zervos, features in a sort of network of flames Harlem, where he experimented with editor of Cahiers d'Art, he made the and stars, of birds and sexual organs, of textures using different kinds of soft etching Dafnis i Cloe, mentioned suns and moons, in a process of disinte- varnishes, and with colour engraving earlier. Miró devoted himself fully to gration of his face, and also, perhaps, as using more than one plate, with which printmaking. Péret's Au paradis des fan- a kind of premonition of his later cons- he achieved etchings of extreme techni- DANSA NUPCIAl. 1963

cal complexity. The backgrounds are based on that first idea. Eventually it sis in search of old copper plates. hazy and carefuily worked so as to give would become a completed composi- During the forties, he applied his in- emphasis to the figures that are repre- tion which he would transfer to a large terest in non-artistic mqterials directly to sented. He worked steadily at the illus- piece of paper so as not to forget it. But painting so as to achieve greater expres- trations for Tristan Tzara's "Antitete"; when the moment came to attack the siveness and at the same time empha- for which, in his search for relief effects, copper plate with the acid, he never size the expressive qualities of the objet he made use of bits of copper arranged needed to refer to anything, although he trouvé. As he himself admitted, "1 am on the plate. liked to have the sketches close at hand like a beggar. When 1 walk 1 always look He returned to Paris in 1948, and while "SO as not to lose contact". at the ground to see what 1 can find". In preparing his exhibition at the Maeght While al1 this shows that he brought his Palma, every morning, he would walk gallery, introduced by Tristan Tzara, ideas to fruition very gradually, at the barefoot along the water's edge, stoop- and working at the Mourlot Frkres crucial moment when he came face to ing to pick up anything lying on the atelier, he discovered the colour litho- face with the plate or the stone the lines sand that might attract his attention; graphy process which was to be his fa- were free and spontaneous, unplanned when he got back to the workshop he vourite technique during the forties, the and automatic. Even though he had would place the objects the waves had lithographic pencil becoming almost as followed a deliberate and perhaps lengthy returned to the shore somewhere where useful to him as the paintbrush. During plan, when the moment came he would he could look at them al1 day. 1952 and 1953, Miró worked a great take a deep breath and say, "Let's go". Although Joan Miró avoided intellec- deal with the "morsure directe" process From then on everything seemed to be tual discussions, and in spite of being in a series of etchings printed at the driven by a force within him or by reluctant to quote from his reading, 1 Lacourikre workshop in eight states in chance. once heard him mention that John of black, and in other, colour states using a "No thing is lowly, nor any hour cruel", the Cross had said that to obtain every- single plate. Miró said he liked the thick wrote Salvat Papasseit soon after he thing, it was necessary to have nothing: dark contours of the edges obtained had asked Miró (who was only a year an idea that comes close to Salvat Pa- with the "morsure directe" process. older than him) for an illustration for passeit's poem. The Japanese poet Ta- Those of us who knew Joan Miró well the cover of his magazine Arc Voltaic kiguchi, a very close friend of Miró's, knew that he took notes in a little note- (Arc Voltaic, No. 1, Barcelona, Februa- introduced him to the Zen philosophy book which he always carried in his top ry 19 18). Years later, as if echoing the which so fascinated him ever since the jacket pocket, though he avoided draw- words of the poet, the painter said, days at the Rue Blomet. After his visit ing in it unless he was quite alone. In it "Everywhere there is sunlight, a blade to Japan in 1966, there is a palpable he recorded any form that came into his of grass, the spirals of the dragonfly". change in his work, which, leading on mind. Afterwards, in the workshop, he Miró always enjoyed his memories of from the search for emptiness of 1925, would choose one and think about it, junk-shops and the surprising forms of incorporated large spaces which stress using any piece of paper that came to the rejected material he found as he the power of the sign that makes poetry hand to quickly draw endless sketches went round Paris with Louis Marcous- out of nothing.