Constellations (Miró): Difference between revisions

Constellations is a series of 23 small paintings on paper, initiated by Joan Miro in 1939 in Varengeville-sur-Mer and completed in 1941 between Mallorca and Mont-roig del Camp. The Fundació Joan Miró preserves a work of this series and The Morning Star, one of the most important pieces of the series ^[1] The painter gave to his wife and she later donated to the Foundation.^[1]

In August 1939, a month before the outbreak of the World War II, Miró, with his family escaped Paris and moved to Varengeville-sur-Mer, a small town in Normandy. This sentiment of escaping is clearly reflected in this series' harmonic and poetic production. At Varengeville-sur-Mer he painted the top ten works in the series which was later called Constellations, beginning with The Dawn and The scale of evasion.

Having fled to France because of the invasion nazi troops, Miró's work continues the series of constellations to Mallorca, which performs 10 more, a more complex group. In 1941 in Mont-roig del Camp, ended the series with 3 new works. At that time began the first sketches of the then known as Barcelona Series , where he would repeat part of his imaginary.

I felt a deep desire to flee. I shut myself deliberately. The night, music and the stars began to play a role in my painting.

— Joan Miró

In this series begins a signs of morphology characterized by the presence of stars, bird, women. Miró was making up the language of the stage of maturity. Among the overlapping of different ways to create a specific color space, which as of this moment is repeated constantly in the artist's work. All works are dated, allowing the sequence in chronological order.

The background of the works are painted in soft tones, and the vast majority of works are full of intersecting linear black, with details painted in primary colors that Miró used (red, blue, yellow ...) the works remind astral maps, representations of cosmic space. ^[2]

Joan Punyet, grandson of the artist, said in an interview TV program at TV3:

The Constellations are a sublime break. They are the way to the power. Towards the universe. They are a door to escape from a circumstantial war , from a genocide, from the brutality of nonsense. The Constellations are like sayinh: my only salvation in this world tragedy is the spirit, the soul that leads me to heaven. That brings me to the sublime. It is as if Miró was a nocturnal bird able to escape from the earth, leaving the sky, traveling across the sky, the stars, to the constellations, to capture them all with one hand, and draw back to earth them on a sheet of paper.

— John Punyet ^[3]

• Clavero, Jordi.J (2010). Fundació Joan Miró. Foundation's Guide. Barcelona: Polígrafa. ISBN 978-84-343-1242-5.
• Walter, Erben (1/03/2004). Miró. Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-2358-3. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)