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Lot Essay
A photo-certificate from Jacques Dupin dated Paris, 5 October 1994 accompanies this gouache.
In 1935 Mir's work took a surprising turn. His joyous imagination yielded to darker themes. Forebodings of menacing forces and cataclysmic events preoccupied the artist's thoughts, and found expression in the birth of cruel and monstrous creatures which invaded and took over his paintings. In 1936 the political crisis in Spain erupted into civil war; Mir's private nightmares had become reality for an entire nation.
Wildness and violence fill Mir's pictures until the end of the decade; however, by 1938 there are lulls when the cruelty abates, and there are flashes of innocence and nostalgia for more peaceful, idyllic times. Pastorale represents one such brief day-dream as the horrors of reality are held in check. Three happy creatures, quite unlike the grotesque personages which populate many of Mir's watercolors during this period, approach a huge and friendly bovine beast. The sun, in the national colors of Spain, spreads its rays like huge arms to embrace the scene.
In works of this kind Mir eventually overcame the cruelty and near-despair which lie at the heart of his 'savage' period. essentially be effected in the transition from the gouaches and watercolors to the oil on canvas. Their demonic character will be attenuated and moderated on the canvas, and dominated and overcome in the end. In Mir there is no exploitation of suffering or delinquency, no complaisance for the monstrous or the cruel. And in the dejection and suffering which he in turn embodies, he is trying to bring aid and comfort to mankind. He is on the side of nature, of the life principle itself." (J. Dupin, Mir, New York, 1962, p. 302)
In 1935 Mir's work took a surprising turn. His joyous imagination yielded to darker themes. Forebodings of menacing forces and cataclysmic events preoccupied the artist's thoughts, and found expression in the birth of cruel and monstrous creatures which invaded and took over his paintings. In 1936 the political crisis in Spain erupted into civil war; Mir's private nightmares had become reality for an entire nation.
Wildness and violence fill Mir's pictures until the end of the decade; however, by 1938 there are lulls when the cruelty abates, and there are flashes of innocence and nostalgia for more peaceful, idyllic times. Pastorale represents one such brief day-dream as the horrors of reality are held in check. Three happy creatures, quite unlike the grotesque personages which populate many of Mir's watercolors during this period, approach a huge and friendly bovine beast. The sun, in the national colors of Spain, spreads its rays like huge arms to embrace the scene.
In works of this kind Mir eventually overcame the cruelty and near-despair which lie at the heart of his 'savage' period. essentially be effected in the transition from the gouaches and watercolors to the oil on canvas. Their demonic character will be attenuated and moderated on the canvas, and dominated and overcome in the end. In Mir there is no exploitation of suffering or delinquency, no complaisance for the monstrous or the cruel. And in the dejection and suffering which he in turn embodies, he is trying to bring aid and comfort to mankind. He is on the side of nature, of the life principle itself." (J. Dupin, Mir, New York, 1962, p. 302)