Lot Essay
In the summer of 1932, while living in Montroig, Miró executed a series of twelve paintings on wood panel which were exhibited in December at Galerie Pierre Colle in Paris. Les amoureux was never shown publicly after its initial exhibition at Galerie Pierre Colle. As do all these paintings on panel, Les amoureux boasts spectacularly sharp, lucid color fields, with enameled surfaces which lend the colors a jewel-like brilliance. It embodies all the qualities of the twelve pictures in the series, which Jacques Dupin described as follows:
Except for a single Man's Head all the paintings on wood are
variations on female morphology...[all] are highly colored with
vibrant resonances and acid flavors conforming closely to the
treatment of the form, in highly refined harmonies... Set off by this pure, intensely colored décor, one or more flexibly traced
human figures make their appearance, their bold deformations never
striking us as arbitrary. The spontaneously flowing line seems to
enhance and bring to musical flowering the various parts of the
body, but actually the line is subordinated to a very precise
articulation of planes. These paintings communicate a feeling of
plentitude in daring, of freedom in rigor. Their intensity and
rightness are such that they do away with the actual dimensions of
the figures and expand them to much grander pictorial dimensions... some parts of the body are inflated or elongated, highly stylized,
while others -- namely the essential organs, mouth, eyes, sexual
parts -- are treated with refinement, polished like jewels... These little paintings testify to Miró's perfect mastery of his new
mode of expression, consolidating gains upon which the splendid
series of large canvases in 1933 would be based. (J. Dupin, op. cit., pp. 251-252)
Except for a single Man's Head all the paintings on wood are
variations on female morphology...[all] are highly colored with
vibrant resonances and acid flavors conforming closely to the
treatment of the form, in highly refined harmonies... Set off by this pure, intensely colored décor, one or more flexibly traced
human figures make their appearance, their bold deformations never
striking us as arbitrary. The spontaneously flowing line seems to
enhance and bring to musical flowering the various parts of the
body, but actually the line is subordinated to a very precise
articulation of planes. These paintings communicate a feeling of
plentitude in daring, of freedom in rigor. Their intensity and
rightness are such that they do away with the actual dimensions of
the figures and expand them to much grander pictorial dimensions... some parts of the body are inflated or elongated, highly stylized,
while others -- namely the essential organs, mouth, eyes, sexual
parts -- are treated with refinement, polished like jewels... These little paintings testify to Miró's perfect mastery of his new
mode of expression, consolidating gains upon which the splendid
series of large canvases in 1933 would be based. (J. Dupin, op. cit., pp. 251-252)