.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Sold with a photo-certificate from Jacques Dupin, signed Paris, le 12 septembre 1989.
During the early 1920s Mir associated with a group of poets who were later to join the Surrealist movement. Between 1925 and 1927, Mir executed a large number of works employing a monochromatic background and simplified forms, each maintaining a clear relationship between line and colour. Referred to as "dream paintings", these works drew their inspiration from the sub-conscious and were executed with a spontaneity comparable to the automatic writings of his fellow Surrealists. Mir often said that he did not distinguish between paintings and poetry, and claimed that his imagination was frequently fired by the poetry of Apollinaire, Lautramont, Rimbaud and Jarry. The "dream paintings" may also have been the product of hallucination generated by hunger and overwork.
From the Surrealists, Mir learned of automatism and of the exploitation of accident as a major vehicle of expression. Commenting upon Mir's paintings of this period, Breton said, "Joan Mir cherishes perhaps one single desire - to give himself up utterly to painting...to that pure automatism which for my part I have never ceased to invoke, but whose profound value and significance Mir unaided has, I suspect, verified in very summary fashion." (D. Ades, Dada and Surrealism reviewed, London, 1978, p. 218). For Mir, automatism was not only a tool to explore the unconscious; it also gave him marvellous freedom in the act of painting, which was to become increasingly abstract.
Mir often spoke of the periods of heightened receptiveness when he would stare at cracks in the walls, spots on the ceiling, or the texture of the floor: "I was drawing almost entirely from hallucinations. Hunger was a great source of these hallucinations and I would sit for long periods looking at the bare walls of my studio trying to capture those shapes on paper or burlap."(M. Rowell, Mir, New York 1970, p. 14)
Discussing these dream paintings, Roland Penrose concluded: 'Mir's originality was sufficiently strong to make his "dream paintings" a new and revolutionary form of expression. This happened chiefly because of his ability to eliminate elaborations and additions introduced by conscious control; suppressing even the symbols that were later to reappear with new significance, he arrived occasionally at pictures which, stripped of all irrelevances, relied on a small spot of colour against an atmospheric background to give a sensation of infinite depth. (R. Penrose, Mir, London 1970, pp. 48-49).
During the early 1920s Mir associated with a group of poets who were later to join the Surrealist movement. Between 1925 and 1927, Mir executed a large number of works employing a monochromatic background and simplified forms, each maintaining a clear relationship between line and colour. Referred to as "dream paintings", these works drew their inspiration from the sub-conscious and were executed with a spontaneity comparable to the automatic writings of his fellow Surrealists. Mir often said that he did not distinguish between paintings and poetry, and claimed that his imagination was frequently fired by the poetry of Apollinaire, Lautramont, Rimbaud and Jarry. The "dream paintings" may also have been the product of hallucination generated by hunger and overwork.
From the Surrealists, Mir learned of automatism and of the exploitation of accident as a major vehicle of expression. Commenting upon Mir's paintings of this period, Breton said, "Joan Mir cherishes perhaps one single desire - to give himself up utterly to painting...to that pure automatism which for my part I have never ceased to invoke, but whose profound value and significance Mir unaided has, I suspect, verified in very summary fashion." (D. Ades, Dada and Surrealism reviewed, London, 1978, p. 218). For Mir, automatism was not only a tool to explore the unconscious; it also gave him marvellous freedom in the act of painting, which was to become increasingly abstract.
Mir often spoke of the periods of heightened receptiveness when he would stare at cracks in the walls, spots on the ceiling, or the texture of the floor: "I was drawing almost entirely from hallucinations. Hunger was a great source of these hallucinations and I would sit for long periods looking at the bare walls of my studio trying to capture those shapes on paper or burlap."(M. Rowell, Mir, New York 1970, p. 14)
Discussing these dream paintings, Roland Penrose concluded: 'Mir's originality was sufficiently strong to make his "dream paintings" a new and revolutionary form of expression. This happened chiefly because of his ability to eliminate elaborations and additions introduced by conscious control; suppressing even the symbols that were later to reappear with new significance, he arrived occasionally at pictures which, stripped of all irrelevances, relied on a small spot of colour against an atmospheric background to give a sensation of infinite depth. (R. Penrose, Mir, London 1970, pp. 48-49).