Women and Birds 1960

With Women and Birds, Joan Miró has created a symbolic universe of figures rendered in bold lines and vibrant color. It looks like he made this painting in the heat of the moment; the black paint is applied quite thickly, creating these bold, abstract shapes that suggest figures of women and birds. Can you see them? I wonder if Miró started with the gold background and then painted the figures on top. The red really pops against the black and gold. There's a real tension between flatness and depth, which is enhanced by the textures of the paint. Just look at that star detail! It almost shimmers. I get the sense that Miró was in conversation with other painters of his time, like Picasso and Matisse, all of them trying to push the boundaries of what painting could be. It reminds us that art-making is an ongoing dialogue, with each artist building upon the ideas of those who came before, embracing ambiguity and welcoming multiple interpretations.