Constellations
| Numbers and constellations, in love with a woman (Chiffres et constellations amoureux d'une femme, constellation no.19) |
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| Joan Miró , 1941 |
| Gouache and watercolor with traces of graphite on ivory-colored paper |
| 45.6 x 38.0 cm |
|
Art Institute of Chicago , Chicago
Link to the picture |
Constellations (French Constellations ) or constellations is the title of a series of paintings of 23 small-format gouaches by Joan Miró , which he in 1940/41 in Mont-Roig del Camp and Palma created.
To the work
“It was around the time the war broke out. I felt the need to flee. I purposely withdrew into myself. The night, the music, the stars began to play an important role in finding my picture ideas. Music has always excited me, and now it was music that took over the role that poetry had played in the early twenties - especially Mozart and Bach - when I returned to Mallorca after the defeat of France. The material of the pictures also took on a new meaning. In watercolors, I roughened the surface of the paper by rubbing it. When I painted on this irregular surface, strange random shapes emerged. Perhaps the self-imposed isolation from my colleagues had led me to look for ideas for the pictures in my material. "
Miró summarized the series of small-format gouaches under the title constellations or constellations . The term “constellations” encompasses an ensemble of bodies of different kinds. Stars and other figurations populate the picture surface in an all-over manner: eyes, circles, points, the male and female genitals and more. When shapes and lines meet, the color changes systematically to red to black and black to red, to name an example.
The constellations were shown as the first European pictures after the war at the beginning of 1945 in the gallery of Pierre Matisse , New York , and caused a sensation. In 1958 André Breton wrote texts for a book that showed 22 of the total of 23 constellations and summed up: “[…] They belong to one another and, as in chemistry, the elements of the aromatic or cyclic series differ. If one considers them both in their development and as a whole, then each of them acquires necessity and value like a member of a mathematical series. And finally, through their uninterrupted, exemplary sequence, they give the word 'series' a very specific meaning. "
The constellations influenced the New York School of Painting and the work of Arshile Gorky , Jackson Pollock, and others. Miró's all-over distribution of forms, the variations of repetitive elements, and the use of automatic drawing according to the écriture automatique method began to gain a foothold in American painting.
On the other hand, Miró's constellations occasionally received criticism for creating harmlessness in difficult times, and a stereotype of innocence was seen in the series of pictures. Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall were also accused of similar accusations .
literature
- Paul Hammond: Constellations of Miro, Breton . City Lights Publishers, San Francisco 2001, ISBN 978-0-872-86372-9
- 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
- Miguel Orozco: The true story of Joan Miró and his Constellations , Academia.edu 2018
- Miguel Orozco: La odisea de Miró y sus Constelaciones . Visor Libros, Madrid 2016, ISBN 978-84-989-5675-7
