Discussing Historical Context that Surrounded the Work of Art & Artist
During the year of 1933, Joan Miro was living in back in Spain. During the 1920’s, he had left Spain and moved to Paris, spending his formative years in Catalonia. His exile in Paris was during the time of the Spanish Civil War, and the outbreak of World War II. He had also visited Paris the year before he moved there in 1920, and was very inspired by and drawn to the avant-garde movement of painters and sculptors already settled there. In 1924, Miro joined the Surrealists in Paris. In Miro’s 1933 painting, Personages with Star, he exhibits biomorphic abstraction, a painting technique that had not been explored prior to the Surrealist movement. During this time, Miro had chosen to take a different path towards his art making processes. This path not only involved the rejection of traditional aesthetic codes, but also the search for a new pictorial language. “When he threatened in 1924 to his friend, French artist Andre Masson: “I will break their guitar,” He was referring not only to the rejection of aesthetic codes inherited from the Renaissance, but to Cubism itself, which by the early 1920’s had become absorbed into the mainstream of French art” (Adamowicz, p.2).
“His aim was to renew pictorial language, as an act of liberation of unconscious impulses, as well as an act of social protest” (Adamowicz, p.2).
During the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, Miro’s work was shown throughout the Netherlands, Paris, New York, and in 1933, London. During this year, there was a lot going on throughout the world that fueled many artists to work in a different way, often protesting against the negative issues that were taking place. To put this in perspective, the year of 1933 was marked as one of the worst years of the Great Depression. Nearly every country in the world was suffering from this severe worldwide economic downturn that lasted well into the late 1940’s. Unemployment during 1933 was peaking; about one in four people did not have jobs. Hitler also became chancellor in Germany, meaning that his Nazi regimes were being put into full effect; the first concentration camp was established in 1933. Miro actively stayed out of Germany to avoid this, which is why none of his work was exhibited in Germany during this time. Scientist Albert Einstein was also actively avoiding the Nazi regimes, he moved from Germany to the U.S. in 1933. Themes of corruption and death were looming, and this year marks the introduction of the machine gun demonstration by a Japanese scientist, working at one thousand shots per minute. Miro was exhibiting his work in London, the year in which the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain had returned back from Germany announcing, “Peace in our time” to everyone. Miro’s choice to visit London during this specific year can be connected to the Prime Minister’s message of peace; Miro was trying to break away. Also, in December of 1933, the eighteenth amendment was repealed; meaning that the sale of alcoholic beverages was now legal, and I cannot be the only person who believes that this repeal could be related to the stresses of the nation.
All of these social, political, technological, and scientific issues that occurred in 1933, the year that Joan Miro’s created, Personages with Star, highly influenced his style and technique. He wanted to rebel against the social norms, and work in a more playful way, as a sort of escape from the negative vibe of that era.
References
Adamowicz, E. (2012). Joan Miró: the assassination of painting?. Journal Of Iberian & Latin American Studies, 18(1), 1-15. doi:10.1080/14701847.2012.716642