BARCELONA.- The Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, in partnership with the Musée Matisse Nice, presents the exhibition MiróMatisse. Beyond Images, which runs from 25 October 2024 to 9 February 2025.

This is a unique and outstanding opportunity to view in Barcelona works by Joan Miró and Henri Matisse never shown in Spain before. In short, it is a fascinating exhibition that will surprise and captivate our audience.

‘Beyond Images’, firstly, because clichés are questioned in this exhibition. It is true that at first sight it may seem paradoxical to place these two artists side by side. They belong to two different generations (Matisse was born in 1869, Miró in 1893) and they are generally associated with different artistic circles (Fauvism in the case of Matisse, Surrealism in Miró’s) and different aesthetic approaches (‘decorative’ harmony in the case of Matisse and disturbing strangeness in Miró’s). Nevertheless, the aim of the exhibition is to show the profound, lasting and constructive relations between the two artists through their concept of art and their artworks.

‘Beyond Images’ also because both these artists based their creative work on a profound critique of the tradition of images in the West. Their broad concept of the practices of painting and drawing was driven by that critical curiosity. As a consequence, they felt a mutual recognition and admiration.

CREATIVE DIALOGUES

Fauvism, with Matisse as one of its chief exponents, was one of the trends that revolutionised art at the start of the twentieth century. This movement is characterised by a use of colour and freedom from formal constraints that aimed to lead painting to a more visceral and direct expression. In his search for ‘elevated decoration’, Matisse used colour as a means to express profound emotions and moved away from the faithful depiction of reality.

Miró, for his part, was influenced by Surrealism and so took a radically different approach to painting. Surrealism, with its emphasis on the subconscious and the world of dreams, enabled Miró to explore a realm in which logic and reason were replaced by instinct and intuition. In his works, Miró broke down form and colour, reducing them to their most basic elements, and he created a unique visual language that defied traditional conventions.

Despite these stylistic differences, Miró and Matisse shared profound reflection on the traditions of the image in Western culture. Both questioned the established norms and sought ways of transcending simple visual representation to create works that would resound with human experience at a more profound level. Matisse did so through his search for a decorative harmony that would surmount internal conflicts, while Miró ‘assassinated’ traditional painting to give rise to a universe of signs and symbols that would invoke a reality beyond what is visible.

Matisse had a deep admiration for Catalonia, a place that played a crucial role in the formation of his style. Ever since his stays in Collioure, a small Catalan port on the French border, he was captivated by the light and rural life of the Mediterranean. It was in Collioure that Matisse, with André Derain, developed Fauvism, an artistic movement characterised by the explosive use of colour and the radical simplification of forms.

A DEEP ADMIRATION

Miró and Matisse thought highly of each other. Matisse, who often referred to Miró as a ‘true painter’, admired the precision and forcefulness of Miró’s use of colour and form. This admiration revealed itself in the 1930s, when Matisse suffered a creative crisis that led him to doubt his own work. During this period, Matisse studied and hung onto a number of works by Miró, in which he found the necessary inspiration to start his artistic approach anew.

Similarly, in the Second World War, Matisse told the poet Louis Aragon, a friend of both artists, that Miró was one of the living artists he most admired:

We were talking about contemporary painters and I asked him who, apart from Picasso, seemed to him to be a true painter. He mentioned the name Bonnard… and then, without hesitation: ‘Miró… Yes, Miró… because he can depict anything on his canvases… If he has placed a red blot at a certain spot, you can be sure that it had to be there and nowhere else, that it had to be… If you remove it, the canvas fails. Henri Matisse to Louis Aragon, c. 1942

For his part, Miró regarded Matisse as a leading figure that he turned to in his search for a visual language that combined Fauvist brutality with a profound inner poetry. In his personal notes, Miró expressed a desire to create works that ‘would have a Fauve spirit, but within the bounds of poetry’ and that they would even be more ‘brutal’ than those of Matisse. This connection with Matisse’s Fauvism helped Miró to arrive at his own artistic voice, notable for its chromatic intensity and vital energy that remained constant throughout his career.

A PERSONAL CONNECTION

Despite the age gap of twenty-three years between them and the fact that they lived in different countries, Miró and Matisse began to meet up in Paris in the 1930s thanks to Pierre Matisse, Matisse’s youngest son, who became Miró’s art dealer in 1934. Pierre, who had inherited from his father a profound respect for painting and artists, played a central role in raising awareness of Miró’s work in the United States. Thanks to Pierre’s influence and support, Miró showed his work in leading galleries and museums in North America, thereby establishing his international reputation.

This collaboration between Pierre Matisse and Miró strengthened the bonds between the two artists’ families and enabled their works to be appreciated in a global context. Miró’s trust in Pierre as his representative not only reflected his admiration for the father but also his recognition of the integrity and vision of the son as the promoter of his art.

BEYOND IMAGES

The exhibition MiróMatisse. Beyond Images is not just a display of these two artists’ works, but also an exploration of the profound intuitions and tensions that led them to transcend traditional images.

This show invites visitors to immerse themselves in the dialogue between these two modern artists, whose friendship and mutual respect prompted them to redefine the limits of painting and left a deep imprint on the history of art.