The farm (Miró)
| The farm (La Ferme) |
|---|
| Joan Miró , 1921/22 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 132 × 147 cm |
|
National Gallery of Art , Washington DC
Link to the picture |
The farm ( La masía in Catalan ,titled La Ferme by the artist on the reverse) is the title of a painting by Joan Miró which he created in Mont-roig del Camp and Paris in1921/22. It took him nine months to complete his first large-format picture. The farm is a key work before its surrealist period, showing realistic and primitive , naive features, as well as influences from Catalan folk art. The very precisely executed painting also shows abstract elements and a cubist design language. The subject of the picture is his parents' farm in Mont-roig del Camp, where he often stayed in the summer months.
To the work
“During the nine months that I worked on the farm , I painted about seven to eight hours a day. I suffered terribly, terribly, like a damned man. I wiped away a lot and began to throw out all the foreign influences and establish contact with Catalonia. "
The realistically depicted house on the left edge of the picture is an image of the parents' farm. The center of the picture is dominated by a eucalyptus tree , the foot of which protrudes unusually brightly from a black circle. Its branches with the sparse leaves protrude into the evening sky, which is illuminated by the moon. On the right there is a cutaway view of a stable which houses a rooster, a goat and a ladder, among other things. It is surrounded by a red line square with a dove on the top right corner. In the foreground is a watering can with a red spout, next to it is an overturned bucket on the left and a French newspaper, L'Intransigeant, on the right . Due to the convolution, only "L'Intr" can be read, in German for example "into" or "into". The placement of the items creates a sexual innuendo. An extension of the bricks next to the red bucket is followed by a path with suddenly ending footsteps. However, the path continues to a fountain, over which a woman leans, next to her pots, a bucket and a creature that looks like a fetus . Behind the well you can see a mill operated by a donkey. In the front left rises a withered-looking plant, possibly an agave with a flower. Miró never explained the meaning of the picture. He only stated that it represented his parents' farm. The painting is considered to be a key work of his incipient surrealist phase. Like a medieval panel , it combines several details into one picture. The image perspective no longer plays a role. In 1923/24 Miró created a follow-up picture with the theme of the farm, the plowed earth ( La terre laborée ), which took the decisive step with further abstraction in his work.
Sold to Hemingway
When the picture was finished, Miró drove from art dealer to art dealer by taxi, which tore a hole in his budget:
- “I dragged the picture to Paul Guillaume , to Paul Rosenberg , a huge picture […] and after a few days I received a pneumatic tube letter: 'Would you please pick up the picture again.' Another taxi […] Rosenberg gave me the advice: 'This is a very beautiful picture, but you know, apartments are expensive today and apartments are small […] You have to find a way to cut the picture into small pieces . '"
However, the sale of the painting dragged on until 1925. Rosenberg had commissioned the work, and horse connoisseur and occasional poet Evan Shipman showed interest. When Shipman learned that his friend Ernest Hemingway wanted to buy the picture too, they rolled the dice for the purchase. Hemingway, who won, had no money but wanted to own the painting and give it to his wife Hadley for her birthday on November 9th. He borrowed the 5000 francs from John Dos Passos and other friends to buy it. Ernest Hemingway passed on to Miró's statement that he painted the picture in nine months, “as long as it takes to have a child”. It has been in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC since 1987 through a donation from Mary Hemingway, the writer's fourth wife
Mas Miró as a museum
The motif of the work, the Mas Miró farm , which still exists today, is to be converted into a museum. The opening was planned for summer 2016 and was later postponed to April 2018.
literature
- Janis Mink: Joan Miró . Taschen, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-8228-6367-1 .
- Hans Platschek : Joan Miró . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1993, ISBN 3-499-50409-X .
Web links
- About The Farm (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ La Ferme , catalogue.successiomiro.com, accessed February 25, 2013
- ↑ Janis Mink: Joan Miró , p. 31
- ↑ Janis Mink: Joan Miró , pp. 31-35
- ↑ La terre labourée , guggenheim.org/new-york, accessed on February 22, 2013
- ↑ Kenneth S. Lynn: Hemingway. A biography . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989, ISBN 3-498-03851-6 , p. 380 f
- ^ Clement Greenberg : Miró , New York 1948
- ↑ Hans Platschek: Joan Miró , p. 50 f
- ↑ El Mas Miró de Mont-roig se convertirá en museo en 2012 como cuna creativa del artista , www.20minutos.es, accessed on October 17, 2012
- ↑ El Mas Miró de Mont-roig del Camp será visitable en 2016 , lavanguardia.com, accessed on May 31, 2015
- ↑ Mas Miró museum to open on April 20 Catalonia Today, January 9, 2018
