When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out. Joan Miro More Quotes by Joan Miro More Quotes From Joan Miro The simplest things give me ideas. Joan Miro simplicity giving ideas My way is to seize an image the moment it has formed in my mind, to trap it as a bird and to pin it at once to canvas. Afterward I start to tame it, to master it. I bring it under control and I develop it. Joan Miro mind bird way I make no distinction between poetry and painting. Joan Miro painting distinction Little by little, I've reached the stage of using only a small number of forms and colors. It's not the first time that painting has been done with a very narrow range of colors. The frescoes of the tenth century are painted like this. For me, they are magnificent things. Joan Miro small-numbers color done My characters have undergone the same process of simplification as the colors. Now that they have been simplified, they appear more human and alive than if they had been represented in all their details. Joan Miro color artist character I start from something considered dead and arrive at a world. And when I put a title on it, it becomes even more alive. Joan Miro titles alive world Throughout the time in which I am working on a canvas I can feel how I am beginning to love it, with that love which is born of slow comprehension. Joan Miro canvas born emotion I work like a gardener. Joan Miro gardener What I will no longer accept is the mediocre life of a modest little gentleman. Joan Miro mediocre-life gentleman littles Art class was like a religious ceremony to me. I would wash my hands carefully before touching paper or pencils. The instruments of work were sacred objects to me. Joan Miro religious hands art What I am looking for... is an immobile movement, something which would be the equivalent of what is called the eloquence of silence, or what St. John of the Cross, I think it was, described with the term 'mute music'. Joan Miro swag silence thinking I begin painting and as I paint the picture begins to assert itself, or suggest itself, under my brush. The form becomes a sign for a woman or a bird as I work... The first stage is free, unconscious... the second stage is carefully calculated. Joan Miro painting bird firsts For me, a picture should be like sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem. It must have radiance; it must be like those stones which Pyrenean shepherds use to light their pipes. Joan Miro sparks dazzle light As regards my means of expression, I try my hardest to achieve the maximum of clarity, power, and plastic aggressiveness; a physical sensation to begin with, followed up by an impact on the psyche. Joan Miro impact expression mean I feel the need of attaining the maximum of intensity with the minimum of means. It is this which has led me to give my painting a character of even greater bareness. Joan Miro character mean art Painting or poetry is made as one makes love - a total embrace, prudence thrown to the winds, nothing held back. Joan Miro making-love wind art I begin my pictures under the effect of a shock which I feel and which makes me escape from reality... I need a point of departure, even if it's only a speck of dust or a flash of light. Joan Miro dust light reality My tendency towards bareness and simplification has been practiced in three fields: modeling, colors, and the figuration of the personages. Joan Miro simplicity three color The picture should be fecund. It must bring a world to birth. Joan Miro birth should world That which interests me above all else is the calligraphy of a tree or the tiles of a roof, and I mean leaf by leaf, branch by branch, blade by blade of grass. Joan Miro branches tree mean
