Femme 1931

Joan Miró made "Femme" with paint on board using a limited palette of mainly red-brown hues, punctuated by accents of green, white, red, and black. Imagine Miró standing before this panel, brush in hand, coaxing these figures into being. I get the sense of him feeling his way through the composition, letting shapes emerge almost unconsciously. The lines are playful and the forms are simplified, like a child’s drawing, yet they carry a certain weight and presence. I wonder if he reworked this quite a bit, letting the painting sit for days at a time. I sympathize with the fact that you want to get something right! You can see he wants to evoke a sense of the feminine—the curves, the flowing lines, the subtle suggestion of a figure. It reminds me a little of Picasso and other surrealists of the time, but with a distinct voice, a voice that still speaks to us. It's like they are all having a conversation across time, with each artist adding their own unique perspective to the ongoing dialogue. Painting for me is all about trying to find that unique voice.