Joan Miró’s Dutch Interior I: A Surrealist Masterpiece
Joan Miró’s Dutch Interior I (1928)
Catalog Information
- Title: Dutch Interior I
- Museum: Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Artist: Joan Miró
- Year: 1928
- Style: Surrealism, Organic Abstract
- Technique: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 92 x 73 cm
Subject Matter
Based on a postcard of a lute player by Hendrick Martensz Sorgh (a 17th-century Dutch painter), Dutch Interior I presents a thoroughly original composition. Miró chose this subject after his trip to the Netherlands in 1928, creating Dutch Interior II and Dutch Interior III in the same series.
Formal Elements
Miró reinterprets Sorgh’s work, applying his characteristic formal and chromatic language. The painting’s components are distorted and transformed into signs of pure color against Miró’s distinctive background. These elements—organic shapes, flat colors, and strong black lines—become recurring motifs in his oeuvre. This work marks the consolidation of a pictorial language that began in 1923 with pieces like Catalan Landscape and The Tilled Field.
Composition
Three large bands of color define the room’s space, demonstrating a total disregard for depth, as seen in the window to the left of the table. In this nearly flat space, each figure undergoes a metamorphosis. The final result is a scene with a distinct sense of motion, perhaps evoking the sound of the lute.
Style
Miró belonged to the Surrealist movement, which championed automatism as a method of image production—a creative process free from conscious reflection.
Meaning
Unlike other Surrealists who sought to explore the unconscious, Miró aimed to recapture the innocence of childhood. This explains his admiration for children’s art and the art of the mentally ill, both of which are full of freedom and unconstrained by convention. This perspective aligns with Jean Dubuffet’s concept of Art Brut.
Summary of Joan Miró’s Artistic Evolution
Initial Formation (1907-1910)
- Escuela de Bellas Artes de la Lonja
- Francisco Galí Art School, where Miró studied under an anti-academic painter influenced by Manet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, the Fauves, and the Cubists. This liberal education fostered Miró’s talent as a colorist.
Influence of the French Avant-Garde (1913-1917)
This period is characterized by a strong, ethical use of color with a clear Cézannian influence. By 1917, Miró concluded his personal interpretation of the Fauvist style.
Contact with Dada and Surrealism
- 1917: Met Francis Picabia (Dadaist) in Barcelona.
- 1919: In Paris, Miró connected with Dada and Surrealist artists and writers, joining the Surrealist movement himself in 1924. He also met Picasso and discovered the works of Paul Klee and Kandinsky.
First Major Work and Development of Visual Language (1921)
The Farm marks a turning point, presenting a detailed inventory of the world Miró observed in Mont-roig. However, the objects are depicted without hierarchy, each isolated and revealed in its smallest details, often accentuated according to emotional preferences, reminiscent of a child’s perception. The Tilled Field (1923-1924) signifies the final liberation from conventional representations of reality, abandoning any concern for depth.
Second Key Work: The Harlequin’s Carnival (1924)
His encounter with the Surrealists confirmed Miró’s pursuit of pictorial poetry. The Harlequin’s Carnival (1924-1925) presents a collection of dreamlike signs and objects arranged on a double-layered ground. Between 1925 and 1927, Miró continued to seek further simplification.
Travel to Holland (1928)
This trip led to a new figuration based on dream experiences, blending the fantastic and the everyday. Organic shapes, stains, and arabesques stand out against monochromatic planes. The seemingly spontaneous result is actually the product of careful planning, evidenced by the numerous drawings preceding the painting. In 1928, Miró also met Alexander Calder.
Evolution After Dutch Interior
The purification of forms through drawing led Miró towards the realization of emptiness, though not yet reaching the extreme minimalism of later works like the Blue Triptych (1961) or Blue Spot (1973). In his final, highly synthetic phase, Miró reduced his expression to a single line against a single color.