Joan Miró

Galería Atenas, Zaragoza
Collection Royo-Sinués, Zaragoza
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Executed on cream wove paper laid down on paper. Attached to the mount at all four corners and floating in the mount. There is a flattened fold running down the middle of the sheet and there are flattened creases to the lower left corner, all visible in the catalogue illustration. The upper right corner has been restored and there is a small nick to the lower edge close to the lower left corner. This work is in overall good condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed in 1968, Les Essencies de La Terra models Miró’s unorthodox and spontaneous approach to medium and form.  Miró applies black ink with emphatic heavy strokes, inserts colour in seemingly arbitrary splashes and casts aside the brush in favour of his hand.  Miró’s radical use of materials was a means to subversion; the painterly genre was his target. ‘He wanted to extend the boundaries of painting, to go ‘beyond’… he took pleasure in transgressing the genres of painting, playfully disrespecting its techniques and supports’, wrote Jacques Dupin of Miró (Jacques Dupin & Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Miró, Catalogue raisonné, Paintings, vol. IV: 1959-1968, p. 8).  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Miró adopted the hand motif as a vehicle to explore celestial bodies. Theatrically gestural, Miró’s palm print is an index of his creative vitality and spontaneous creation.  The imprint of an ink stained palm is an extension Miró’s automatic forms, made more immediate by the removal of any intermediary tool.  Marvellously whimsical, the present work displays Miró’s signature joie de vivre.     

In Les Essencies de la Terra we see the distillation of form to the most economical of pictorial means.  Executed with the technical assurance and calligraphic boldness perfected by Miró in the latter decades of his career, Les Essencies de la Terra shows Miro’s style verging between figuration and abstraction.  By utilising negative space in conjunction with bright colours, the artist creates a sensation of monumentality and universality within the composition.  ‘I always feel the need to achieve the maximum of intensity with the minimum of means… A modelled form is less surprising than a form as yet un-modelled. Without modelling or chiaroscuro, the depth is unlimited: movement can be extended to infinitude. Little by little I have managed to reach a point at which I use no more than a small number of forms and colours (quoted in Perucho, Joan Miró y Cataluña, Barcelona, 1968, pp. 238-46).