Joan Miró's Dutch Interior (1928): Surrealist Analysis

Analysis of Joan Miró's Dutch Interior (1928)

Context and Identification

Outside the Netherlands and Inside the Netherlands: This analysis focuses on a work from the series Dutch Interiors by Joan Miró, created in 1928. Miró, associated with the School of Paris (Paris, France), employed the style of Surrealism.

The Theme: In 1928, Miró traveled to Holland and was strongly impressed by certain 17th-century Dutch painters. He subsequently painted a series interpreting these works in his own manner. The reference for this specific piece, often cited as "Outside the Netherlands," is Hendrick Martensz Sorgh's painting, The Lute Player (sometimes referred to as The Vanity of Lute).

Materials and Technique

The support element is fabric (canvas), and the medium is oil paint. This is a pictorial technique in which the binding agent for the colors is a vegetable oil. It allows for smooth transitions (sfumato) and easier blending than other forms of painting or drawing, emphasizing color over a closed form or strict drawing line.

Formal Analysis

Composition and Structure

The composition is asymmetrical, lacking strict geometric structure.

Perspective and Line

The combination of colors creates a sense of space, suggesting an interior room (achieved through the color combination of wall, floor, ceiling, etc.).

Curved Lines: These lines define the color schemes and impart great dynamism. There is no natural light source depicted.

Chromaticity and Stroke

The chromaticity of the picture utilizes primary and secondary colors, denoting brightness and color schemes that convey joy. While the stroke itself is not heavily emphasized, great importance is given to the contour of the figures; the line is crucial for Miró.

The expression is conveyed by the stroke and the vivacity of the drawings, giving a feeling of joy and a certain disorder, intended to transmit the vitality of color.

Rhythm

The rhythm is externally fictitious, primarily established by the curved lines.

Influences and Interpretation

Relations with Similar Works

This work shares characteristics with other pieces by the author, such as The Dancer (similar use of colors and abstract shapes).

Background and Later Influences

Miró was inspired by the Baroque of 17th-century Holland, specifically Sorgh's The Lute Player, which inspired the creation of the conditions and elements within Miró's own painting.

Meaning and Function

Meaning: Miró sought to be realistic in his own way, making deliberate decisions. His figures, though strange, always referred to something—a person or an animal. Miró's realism is one that removes elements from the painting; this is the process followed in the Dutch Interiors series. The painting does not have significance in itself, but Miró finds his own line, the boundary between reality and unreality, pushing close to the totally unrealistic.

Function: To reflect a new reality—an impossible, hallucinatory, absurd reality—achieved through artificial means. It functions by recreating his inner world through the wonderful and the playful.

Historical Context and Conclusion

Historical Background

We are in the era of totalitarianism. Many Surrealist artists fled these regimes, often moving to America, which became a center of artistic power. Miró himself had to leave Spain due to the dictatorship imposed in the country. Later, he also fled to France, this time due to the Nazis.

Conclusion: A New Vocabulary

The work represents the creation of a vocabulary of signs that allows the artist to express his inner world and a personal "meta-reality."