Leo Sherman
Recitation Group B
October, 2017
Joan Miro, The Hunter (Catalan Landscape), Oil on canvas, 1923-24; Purchase 1936: MOMA, Manhattan, New York
The painting that I chose to pursue, on the fifth floor of the New York Museum of Modern Art, in their permanent collection is The Hunter by Joan Miro, sat amongst many famous works that lines the large white walls of the room. Measuring 64.8×100.3, it exists not greatly, but different enough that the space it occupies is just as commanding as the one of a larger piece.
This painting was created a year after he moved from Montroig to Paris and his experience of nature was greatly lessened causing him to create landscapes that seemingly evaded reality.
And although the chaotic non linear landscapes display an unnatural surreal world that seems to reflect the “multiplicity of the natural world” may it also reflect too of the happenings of the constructed world. Set into the yellow of the top half of the image are what look to be waves with birds hovering in close proximity, bringing something semi realistic in nature to the piece. Miro depicts the flags of France, Catalan, and Spain on the top half of the painting, possibly hinting to the political climate the artist was surrounded by, demonstrating the absurdity of the rationalization of human thought and the pursue of orders and things man made to reign dominant.
Perhaps chaos and the surreal may lead to enlightenment, just as the brightly colored spaces is dotted with abstract formed with multitudes of limbs and many cones and triangles littered throughout its expanse along with many smal colorful leech like objects.
In this paintings (The hunter) experimental surreality, there is something almost radically sublime and ineffable taking place.
Although composition seems to not of distinguishable figures or any recognizable objects on this abstract landscape, the collection of shapes on the left side of the frame is names figure and the two objects in his hand, rabbit and rifle.
The eye wanders from corner to corner tracing the many shapes that the frame contains.The Objects scattered across its surface vary in size shape and color, each as unique as the next, Forest green, black, salmon, yellow, light blue, pink, orange, brown and varying beige tones (the ‘sard’ on the right bottom corner standing for ‘Sardana’, the national dance of Catalonia originating in emporda in the north-east Catalan region) that combine to create a feeling of wonder in the viewer and a question of contemplation. What are the implications of new art? Where do practicality and functionality meet their demise? And what makes art like this good instead of wasteful, what is learned in process?
Perhaps a piece like this explicate an idea better than text, between hand and canvas much less is lost than idea to word to pen to paper. Painting such as these are an accurate portrayal of whatever they are needed to be.
