Who was Joan Miró i Ferrà?
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Catalan sculptor and designer who is considered to be one of the most original artists of the 20th century and the most famous naive artist. Miró was born in Barcelona in 1893 and although he wanted to study art, he started to study business due to his father’s demand. Only when he was 27 years old he went to Paris to study arts. He worked mainly in Paris, New York and Barcelona, where he returned in 1940 despite his views against Franco. Miró was influenced in his works by various artistic trends, including Cubism, Fauvism and the Surrealist movement.
Miró was one of the radical representatives of the Surrealist movement and was often cited scorning the conventional art. There is a striking contrast between Mirós serious, hardworking and analytical character, and his works. When we take a look at his colorful and naive-childish works, we expect their creator to look like a bohemian, long-haired artist and not like the bourgeois that he actually looked like.
Despite his appearance, which can be seen in the attached picture, his paintings and sculptures are famous for their strong colors, geometric shapes and the great similarity between them. They serve as examples of abstract surrealism. His later paintings are characterized by an abstract style combined with distinct but distorted natural anchors (figures of women, moon and stars, animals). The distortion and clarity of these anchors creates order in Miró’s paintings and makes it easier to understand his intentions than the intentions of other Surrealists.
Like all Surrealist artists, Miró describes the reality by symbols and radicalism that express the artist’s point of view of the world rather than his “objective” description (the latter is specific to the classical realist art). Miró often said that his paintings “are like a song“.
What is naive art?
In order to better understand Miró’s work, one should know what is “naive art”. Naive art is characterized by simple and childish elements and colors. That is why many people think it is boring and do not like it, but among those who are keen on this stream we can mention both adults and children (for addition information – Kids and Families in Fundació Joan Miró).