Under the Influence of Classics: 1960-1982 - page 1

The period 1960-1982 was the one in which Miro produced the most numerous and varied book illustrations, mastering large formats and working with a great many authors. For this reason it is difficult to discuss each edition individually. However, given the consistency of this work within its variety, it is easy to examine it on the basis of the different concepts involved. Mention should also be made of the remarkable unity between the rest of Miro's oeuvre and his book illustrations. By the beginning of the sixties, he was working and would continue to work on large format paintings and ceramic murals, though without abandoning smaller paintings. At the same time, he gradually tended towards large format books whilst continuing to illustrate small ones.

The change of dimensions as far as painting was concerned was accompanied by a new form of brushstroke. Miro abandoned the controlled execution of fifties in favor of the gesture and tension generated thereby. In the books, this change can be detected in two of the PAB editions: La and Un Jour entire, both dated 1960, and is shown more forcefully in the etching illustrating Poemes civils by Joan Brossa, published in 1961, Trace sur l'eau, 1963, and Flux de l'aimant by Rene Char, published in 1964. In his paintings, the nearest equivalent would be Triptych on white ground for a hermit's cell, 1968, where in each of three canvases a single black line on the vast white surface transmits the anxiety of someone who feels himself imprisoned, alone and isolated.

Miro's three-dimensional work also has its parallels in the world of illustration. In 1966, after completing a set of bronze sculptures, he began the task of illustrating Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, published by Teriade. The result was certainly surprising: each of the thirteen prints is treated more as stage set than a drawing, as if it were a space in which volumes, in this case the characters in the play, can move freely. The grotesque rounded form of the characters-they seem to be inflated- undoubtedly came from a profound study of Jarry's text that had so impressed Miro. Here, contrary to his usual practice, the artist lustrated the text as if he were staging the play, following it to the very measure. Sometime later, in 1978, these "sets" of Miro's were used for a play put on by the Claca Teatre group, Mori el Merma, which was based on Jarry's text, Miro's illustration and all the material, both published and unpublished, produced by Miro in connection with the character he created by Alfred Jarry.