A Dew Drop Falling from a Bird's Wing Wakes Rosalie, who Has Been Asleep in the Shadow of a Spider's Web 1939

Joan Miró made "A Dew Drop Falling from a Bird's Wing Wakes Rosalie, who Has Been Asleep in the Shadow of a Spider's Web" using oil on canvas. The base color is this gritty sort of umber, like raw canvas, a rough and absorbent ground that soaks up the paint. It's not trying to trick you into thinking it's anything other than what it is. I love the way Miró deploys color as sparse accents. The shapes are so graphic, like hieroglyphs or pictograms, but the painting has none of the slickness that would imply. There's a strange eye in the middle of the painting - or maybe it's a fish? It’s an orange-red circle with a black outline and these funny little lashes. This is painting as a process of playful invention, as if Miro is in a call and response with the canvas. I feel like Miro is in conversation with artists like Paul Klee, who also used whimsical imagery to suggest some kind of underlying dreamscape. I like art that doesn't try to be too smart or too serious, but can somehow suggest both.