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First Grade Print
Hirondelle/Armour, 1934
By Joan Miro (1893-1983)
Technique: oil on canvas
Size: 6’ 6 ½ “ x 8’ 1 ½”
Collection: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Art Style: Surrealism
OBJECTIVES:
 The students will be introduced to the work of Joan Miro.
 The students will examine the use of line, shape, and color in Miroʼs painting.
 The students will create their own abstract drawing that focuses on line, shape, and color.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Joan Miro was born in Barcelona in April 1893 to an artisan family. One of his grandfathers was a
cabinetmaker, and the other a blacksmith; his father was a successful goldsmith. Miro began to study
art at the age of 14, while continuing to study commerce at a local school. His early work was quite
mediocre, however, and his father decided to send him to work at a commercial firm. Miro was so
miserable at his clerkʼs job that he suffered a mental and physical breakdown after two years, and
was sent to recover at his parentsʼ property in Montroig. It was there that Miro discovered his
vocation as a painter, at the age of 19. His violently colored early canvases reflect the influence of
the fauvists, and a 1912 cubist exhibition in Barcelona would also have a lingering effect on his
painting for several years. After 1917, Miroʼs work became gradually more individual, rejecting
traditional detail for a decorative, ornamental surface. At the age of 24, Miro had already discovered
and how to use the motifs, signs, objects, and archetypes that would characterize his later work. His
paintings of the time were extravagant fantasies of color and imagination, but were still linked to
traditional figurative art in which a table is still a table, and a tree is still a tree.
In 1920, Miro moved to Paris, where he met Andre Masson, who introduced him to important
surrealist figures like Tristan Tzara. The surrealists, who were predominately men of letters, favored
an art based on the unconscious, on dream, and on spontaneous creation. Following their example,
Mior gradually moved away from traditional perspective and figuration towards highly imaginative
canvases. In his paintings of this period, a snail could be the same size as a horse and a tree could
have eyes and ears.
During the next ten years, Miro divided his time between Paris and his summer residence in Montroig,
with only a single journey to Holland in 1928 interrupting this routine. He became increasingly
interested in mixed media, and such diverse materials as thread, metal, feathers, padlocks, sand,
newspaper clippings, and post cards began to find their way into his work. These experiments led to
a brief flirtation with sculpture.
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ABOUT THE ARTWORK:
After his trip to Holland in 1928, Miro also produced a fanciful series of imitations of the Old Masters,
and in 1933 and 1934, he created a succession of canvases with lettered inscriptions, to which
Hirondelle/Armour belongs. In this canvas, imaginary shapes resembling birds are interspersed with
other forms resembling hands, feet, and heads. The outlined shapes and absence of relief are typical
of Miroʼs work as a whole. Miro repeats various shapes and colors throughout the composition,
creating a fanciful but coherent world. The inscriptions “hirondelle” and “amour” are more code words
in Miroʼs imaginary universe than descriptions of reality.
The Spanish Civil War prompted Miro, like Picasso in Guernica, to paint a canvas on the theme of the
hated Franco dictatorship. Miroʼs Still Life with Old Shoe, is one of the artistʼs rare dramatic and
political works.
From 1939 to 1941, Miro painted a series of 23 gouaches entitled Constellations, which is a personal
repertoire of Miroʼs favorite forms, symbols, and themes. World War II saw Miro, along with his wife
and daughter (he was married in 1929), flee to Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands. There, he began to
experiment with ceramics with his friend Artigas, an internationally renowned potter. After working
with traditional forms, Miro turned to ceramic murals made of several pre-assembled pieces. Miroʼs
famous mural in the Guggenheim Museum was created in this way. During 1957 and 1958, Miro
created the Night and Day murals at the UNESCO building in Paris. In 1968, at the age of 71, Miro,
still the perpetual poet, immersed one of his statues in a grotto in the Mediterranean. An extremely
prolific artist, Miro leaves to future generations a testimony to the possibilities of the imagination,
which is perhaps the only thing in the world that all people can share.
*Biographical text from: Briere, M. (1988). Art image grade three. Champlain, NY: Art Image
Publications, Inc.
QUESTIONS AND POINTS FOR DISCUSSION:
Subject Matter
 What do you see in this painting?
 Does the subject matter in this painting seem real or imaginary?
Elements of Art
 Where do you see cool colors? Where do you see warm colors?
 Discuss how Miro created shapes by his use of line and color.
 Have a couple of student volunteers use their fingers to trace some of the lines in the painting.
The other students should follow along with their eyes.
Principles of Design
 Where do you see the repetition of colors and shapes?
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PROJECT:
Each student will decorate his/her art portfolio folder with an abstract drawing that has a primary
focus on line, shape, and color. The students will begin by “taking a line for a walk.” Have each
student use a black crayon to draw a wide “scribble” on the front of his/her folder. The black line can
wander in waving or straight lines, crossing its own path to create shapes. Then the students will
look for shapes that have been created by the black line drawing. As the students color the shapes
with crayons, they can make choices about using cool or warm colors and which colors will be placed
side by side for contrast. The students can use their imaginations to find people, animals, or objects
in the shapes that they have created, and details can be added. Each studentʼs name and the title of
each studentʼs artwork can be written on the folders as part of the composition. (Miro had lettered
inscriptions on some of his paintings.)
SUPPLIES:
 Legal sized manila folders (These should have been stored in the classroom for the school
year.)
 Crayons