The Flight of the Dragonfly in Front of the Sun
Joan Miró
JOAN MIRÓ, 1968. OIL ON CANVAS.
In the 1960s, Joan Miró began stripping away anything superfluous until all he was left with was unadulterated expression. Gone were the playful flourishes of his earlier abstractions, the human-like quality of his shapes, the kinetic movement and subtle shading of his figures and planes. In their place, plumbed from the depths of his consciousness, was simplicity. The flight of the dragonfly needs nothing more than a line to speak of its movement and it is dwarfed by the enormity, and irregularity, of the sun. Miro began to paint not seeking representation or even emotion but a sort of unplaceable familiarity. If he reduced the world around him to core elements, and depicted the world as filtered through memory and experience, he could capture the purest essence of existence. The flight of the dragonfly is not about the dragonfly but about how both the smallest being and the largest concepts should take up the same space together.