THE
MIRO CRACKED
Sun
Herald
12-07-1998
by
Paul McDermott
The best way to see the work
of a master is by looking through the eyes of a child, says Paul
McDermott.
On December 25, 1983, the
Catalan artist Joan Miro died. The Australian National Gallery in
Canberra has one Miro and I decided to make the pilgrimage to pay
homage and bid farewell. The gallery was closed on Christmas Day
but on Boxing Day I found myself there. I knew exactly where the
Miro was hung, I could have found it blindfolded: left at the
entrance, through the Primitive collection, a sharp right at the
Tucker just past the shadow of Duchamp's chair and there it was.
It owned a vast grey slab of
concrete and seemed to vibrate off the wall. I recognised the two
biomorphic shapes that were strangely related yet separated by a
purple sky and a brilliant red earth. I sat on one of the black
leather couches, sank into the red earth, and thought about Miro.
Living in incredible poverty,
Miro began suffering hallucinations from lack of food. These
intense hallucinations featured the shapes and forms that would
become the trademark of his work, simultaneously mature and
childlike, profound and simple. Miro understood their potential
and sought to summon them from his subconscious. He deprived
himself of food and drink and stared at a white wall until
figures and surreal creatures materialised before him. These he
would scribble onto canvas or scraps of paper. He would capture
them in that moment: recording their numerous tendrils, or their
misshapen heads, their bloated feet or questing eyes. He trapped
the circles, the light, the colours his mind threw up. Beautiful
monsters evolved as his white wall turned into a luminous sky, a
landscape of dreams.
Miro believed his visions
were part of a universal subconscious, the same belief that Jung
ascribed to, a common visual language that connects and exists in
every human being. Miro suspected the reason we were unable to
understand these images was due to the fact we "grew
up". Society, education, civilisation and experience all
formed a barrier to the intuitive and to the natural. The idea
that everything we learn prevents us from reaching what we
already know. Miro believed his works were childlike and they
must be seen through a child's eyes.
I had been watching the Miro
for about 20 minutes when a mother and daughter blocked my view,
standing between myself and the painting. The little girl was
about five and had dragged her mother away from some other pieces
to gaze at the bright canvas. She stood twisting her head from
one side to another, before he mother asked if she liked the
work. The daughter nodded and the mother wanted to know if her
little girl knew what the picture was about. She looked puzzled
by the question so her mother began to explain as best she could.
"That's Bugs Bunny and
he's under the ocean, and that other ball thing in the water,
that's a balloon. You see Bugs has the balloon on a string and
he's going over to his good friend Goofy's house..."
The mother's reading of the
work astounded me. Each new observation was a torpedo of bilious
popular culture straight into her child's imagination. How was
she going to explain Blue Poles: "that's Mickey after his
stomach ruptured from too much gentian violet?" I was
saddened she couldn't create her own myths but had to rely on
American cartoons. How could this happen on the day after Miro's
death? I felt the artist's dreams die with him and it took less
than 24 hours. The description left me desolate.
The little girl continued to
twist her head and said, quietly at first but gaining in strength
and confidence, "No, it's not. That is the moon and that is
a duck."
In that moment the girl
realised Miro's vision; she understood intuitively what her
mother could not; imagination triumphed over reason. It was
Boxing Day and I received the finest Christmas present from a
little girl I would never know.
Thanks to Jaz
for this Article
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