Joan Miro: Poetry and Prints - page 2

From 1967 onwards, Robert Dutrou introduced Miro to a new technique invented by Henry Goetz: silicon carbide engraving. Unlike traditional engraving, which consists in hollowing out thee metal, carving it with a tool or an acid, so that the deep set ink prints onto a sheet of paper under the press, in Goetz' method, the incised work is replaced by a relief work, a hard superstructure on the copper surface. The word engraving is improper, but it is practical and the result can be assimilated to engraving. The method, Goetz writes in a booklet where he explains his invention "consists of setting very high pressure resistant substances such as silicon carbide, synthetic varnish, or both, on the plate surface. The interstices between the silicon carbide grains and the streaks in the varnish replace the holes or grooves in the metal itself in the more classical methods. These e interstices, which hold the printing ink, give it back to thee moist paper, under press, to create a print"

Miro benefited greatly from this discovery. He says so in two letters to Goetz"…the results are fascinating and very beautiful. The artist can express himself with more richness and freedom…which give a beautiful substance and a more powerful line… Never did we get such a powerful substance before…" Miro is impassioned and he is right. Silicon carbide had given him what he was looking for, large and strong original prints, almost "picture prints", to be hung and not kept in a portfolio or in a print lover's almost secret drawers. . Because e the method allows for and gives rise to large scale works, mostly 104 x 72 cm, some of them 140 x 130 cm, and the Grand Triptyque Noir (Great Black Triptych) reaching 160 x 120 cm. Not only the dimensions make the prints monumental, but also the strength of the stretching and incision, the brightness and depth, the volcanic projections that uplifts them. And they assemble in a gallery of fantastic figures, staggering primitive antiportraits, overflowing with humor and Mironian nocturnal and telluric energy which draws its matter from all sources and owes nothing to any one, so precisely are its impregnation and distillation defined…