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Constellations. morning Star
Joan (Joan) Miro • Painting, 1940, 38×46 cm
Description of the artwork «Constellations. morning Star»
Miro wrote a series of 23 paintings "The Constellations" in 1940-1941 in three different cities: Varanzhevile, Palma de Mallorca and Mont Roch. These were the most terrible, hopeless and difficult times for the artist. In 1936, he fled to Paris from Spain, when the civil war broke out there, and with the outbreak of World War II he moved to quiet Varanzheville. In 1940, German troops invaded France - and Miro again forced to flee. On the train from Varanzhevil to Paris, through the bombing and the roar of shells, Miro, his wife Pilar and ten-year-old daughter Dolores ride. Miro only has a portfolio with him, in which he takes 10 ready-made sheets with “Constellations” and empty sheets for new ones. The Miro family travels to Mallorca, in the hometown of Pilar.
In Palma, the artist writes another 10 “Constellations” and is preparing for the fact that he will have to spend the rest of his life here, walk on the sand, look at the sea and paint pictures that no one will ever see. Tired of moving, driven to despair, Miro is confident that Hitler will take over half the world and Nazism will win. And news of the war only strengthens this confidence.
For the "Constellations" Miro takes paper of the same size 38 x 46 cm, from one pack. All the finished works are constantly in front of his eyes - they must create a single artistic space, become one, must keep and maintain a single impulse.
Miro uses sophisticated techniques to work on the entire series: he grinds, sprays, layered diluted gouache and oil paints on each sheet, and then carefully and painstakingly paints scattered elements, curls, and colored dots on this complex background. Here you can see figures resembling bird heads with beaks or wings, you can find a star or a human figure, tail or chimney. But, as in the case of celestial constellations, which exist in the form of scattered individual stars, and are assembled into an imaginary figure only by the force of gaze, the elements in Miro's paintings require the same work of the imagination. Mentally connect disparate objects and collect the whole picture.
With each new work, the "Constellations" become more difficult, the sheet is filled with a denser picture. For example, Midnight Nightingale Song and Morning Rain or"Poetess" - These are already fragments of a heavy night sky strewn with stars. Such a sky happens somewhere in the wilderness, in a distant village, in the mountains or on deserted beaches, where city light does not drown the starlight. Finding a constellation in such a sky is more difficult. But there is always enough time and mood to observe the stars. Even if the world is somewhere there, on the other side, is engulfed in war, even if there is no hope of its salvation for a long time.
Author: Anna Sidelnikova
In Palma, the artist writes another 10 “Constellations” and is preparing for the fact that he will have to spend the rest of his life here, walk on the sand, look at the sea and paint pictures that no one will ever see. Tired of moving, driven to despair, Miro is confident that Hitler will take over half the world and Nazism will win. And news of the war only strengthens this confidence.
For the "Constellations" Miro takes paper of the same size 38 x 46 cm, from one pack. All the finished works are constantly in front of his eyes - they must create a single artistic space, become one, must keep and maintain a single impulse.
Miro uses sophisticated techniques to work on the entire series: he grinds, sprays, layered diluted gouache and oil paints on each sheet, and then carefully and painstakingly paints scattered elements, curls, and colored dots on this complex background. Here you can see figures resembling bird heads with beaks or wings, you can find a star or a human figure, tail or chimney. But, as in the case of celestial constellations, which exist in the form of scattered individual stars, and are assembled into an imaginary figure only by the force of gaze, the elements in Miro's paintings require the same work of the imagination. Mentally connect disparate objects and collect the whole picture.
With each new work, the "Constellations" become more difficult, the sheet is filled with a denser picture. For example, Midnight Nightingale Song and Morning Rain or"Poetess" - These are already fragments of a heavy night sky strewn with stars. Such a sky happens somewhere in the wilderness, in a distant village, in the mountains or on deserted beaches, where city light does not drown the starlight. Finding a constellation in such a sky is more difficult. But there is always enough time and mood to observe the stars. Even if the world is somewhere there, on the other side, is engulfed in war, even if there is no hope of its salvation for a long time.
Author: Anna Sidelnikova
