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JOAN MIRÓ AND CATALONIA

THROUGHOUTHIS LIFE, JOAN MIRO ACKNOWLEDGED HIS ATTACHMENT TO CATALONIA, NOT ONLY WITH THE LEGACY HE LEFT THE COUNTRY, BUT ALSO THROUGH HIS WHOLE ATTITUDE.

ROSA MARlA MALET DIRECTOR OF THE JOAN MIRÓ FOUNDATION n various occasions, Joan Miró Miró to value and appreciate empty present kept in the Fundació Joan Miró. said, "lt is important to maintain spaces and the line of the horizon, and it is This activity brought out a new dimension one's roots in order to become certain that the artist always remembered of Miró's creativity: his work in volume universal". This apparently contradictory him with affection, since, in the collection --ceramics and sculpture- and the feel sentence contains the key to the secret of of drawings he gave to the foundation for different textures of his materials, Miro's work and shows the importance that bean his name, we can see the work something which can be incorporated in the painter gave to the lessons which, at of Modest Urgell ever present in Miró's the work of art. different levels, he received from the land mind. This is supported by sketchbooks On a second level of analysis, leaving itself. from the last years of his life. We can say aside the strictly educational influences he This realization was responsible for the that Modest Urgell's teaching played a received, there is no doubt that Joan Miró painter's attitude towards Catalonia, for decisive role in the characteristic way in was affected in other ways that, quite which he worked all his life. which Joan Miró saw space on a canvass naturally and ~~ontaneously,helped to Getting back to the words of the artist and differentiated between the part occu- develop his sensibility. In the first place, it himself, what did he mean when he ex- pied by creatures that inhabit the celestial should be remembered that Joan Miró, in pressed this wish to keep in close touch univene and the part that corresponds to his home town of Barcelona, lived all the with his country? Without doubt, he was the earth. impetus and formal exuberance of referring to the need he must have felt, not Another teacher Joan Miró often spoke of Modernism. On severa1 occasions, the ar- only to lose his own identity, but also to as having encouraged one of his artistic tist expressed his profound admiration for shape himself, as a human being and as activities --ceramics and sculpture- was Antoni Gaudi, who, in spite of the dif- an artist, on the basis of the inherited es- Francesc Gali. Gali ran a private school, ference in their ages, also attended sence of the way of life and the culture of more adventurous than the Llotja, which classes at the Cercle Artistic de Sant Lluc, his country. Miró also attended. There were theory another of the art schools Miró went to. This heritage, understood in the broadest and practica1 classes, not only for the Furthermore, it was again in Barcelona sense of the word, has to be looked at teaching of plastic arts, but also to provide that Miró came in contact with the aes- from two angles. On the one hand, it is a knowledge of music and poetry. thetics of Catalan Romanesque painting, important to bear in mind the formation Francesc Galí's classes revealed to Joan examples $j'which had iust been transfer- and information the artist sought to satisfy Miró the importance of one of the senses red from the Pyrenean churches to the his vocation. On the other hand, we must which is normally less developed in pain- Museu &Art de Catalunya. The hieratic not forget the social and cultural substrata ters: touch. Gali soon discovered Joan Mi- pose of the saints, the concept of perspec- which, over the years, forms the essence ró's gifted use of colour, but he also saw tive and the sober coloun typical of Ro- of cultures and their people and which, the difficulty he had in representing, manesque art appear in some of Miro's without doubt, leaves its imprint on all amongst other things, he human form. This very early paintings. who come into contact with it. led him to try an unusual teaching method Mention must be made of another deci- In an initial analysis, then, we have to bear on the young student. Having covered sive factor which, as he himself said, was in mind the importance of the classes that Joan Miró's eyes, he made him feel an the most important in shaping his artistic Joan Miró took in Barcelona, as well as obiect or a fellow studentts hands or language: the effect produced by his con- the impact on the young artist of some of head, and then paint whatever it was tacts with rural life. his teachen. First of all, at the Escola de without seeing ¡t. The results of these exer- The fact that his paternal grandparents Llotia, he met Modest Urgell, a Catalan cises can be seen in the few drawings that lived in Cornudella, an inland village in Romantic painter born in 1839. He taught survive from this period and which are at the south of Catalonia, meant that, from a

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very early age, Joan ~irógot to know this mum political opression, and new cultural activities bearing in mind the two pur- region of strong geogiaphical contrasts. initiatives emerged in Catalonia, Joan Mi- poses it was created for: on the one After his parents bought the farmhouse at ró's contribution was particularly im- hand, it conserves and exhibits the work Mont-roig, later immortalized in one of his portant. To cite just one example, one of its founder, and on the other, it encou- most famous paintings, his contact with the should remember the large number of rages al1 branches of modern art. Re- land of Tarragona became more and posters he designed and generously do- garding the first task, the foundation owns more constant and profound. nated to promote these new iniciatives, an invaluable treasure: the almost five His visits to Mont-roig taught Joan Miró to from a juridical congress to a modern thousand drawings, one hundred and value and love everything connected with dance performance or a poster comme- eighty paintings, one hundred and fifty rural life, the work of the farrner, the morating the publication of a Catalan sculptures, the complete collection of his animals and crops that bring the land to publisher's five hundredth title. graphic work and books and the new life and the stars, so often present in his Joan Miró's work as an artist goes beyond textile pieces, al1 donated by Joan Miró work. a mere attitude towards his own country. when the institution was created. According to the artist, from this close re- This is a fact we Catalans are grateful for As for the second of the foundation's acti- lationship with the land came his creative since the presence of Joan Miró continues vities, in the eleven years it has existed, the energy. The statement is a meaningful in our midst thanks to the works to be institution has gained a leading position in one; in what other way could he have found in public places. Barcelona, Miró's the promotion of modern art in Barcelona elaborated his unmistakable and original home town, is the city that most benefits and, over these years, it has become a language, whose beginning lies in a from this, and here alone there are four of must for lovers of twentieth century art figurative painting, apparently unimpor- the artistts monumental works: the large and architecture who visit the city. tant, of a farmhouse (La Masia), after mural at ths airport, the ceramic pav- It would be almost nonsensical to ask who which he progressively refined and built ement of the Rambla, the statue in the or what Joan Miró would have been if he up what was to become his own special Parc de I'Escorxador and the large had been born in any other country. His vocabulary? sculpture at the City Hall. personality would probably have shown Throughout his life, Joan Miró acknow- But of al1 Miró's legacy, the most remarka- itself just the same. What we can be sure ledge his attachment to Catalonia, not ble part is the foundation that bean his of is that the situation of modern art in only with the legacy he left the country, name. The building on Montjuic, designed Catalonia would have been completely but also through his whole attitude. by Josep Lluís Sert, a great friend of Mi- different if it had not been able to count When the situation in the Spanish state ró's, has become a centre for students of on the human and artistic presence of started to change, after the yean of maxi- his work. The foundation organizes its Joan Miró. e