Composition

"Just as I worked very carefully in the Palma series which had immediately preceded these, 'controlling' everything, now I worked with the least control possible - at any rate in the first phase, the drawing. Gouaches: in pastel colours with very violent contrasts. Even here, however, only the broad outlines were unconsciously done. The rest was carefully calculated. The broad initial drawing, generally in grease crayon, served as a point of departure. I even used some spilled blackberry jam as a beginning; I drew carefully around the stains and made them the centre of the composition. The slightest thing served me as a jumping off place in this period" (Miró, quoted in J. Johnson Sweeney, 'Comment and Interview', in Partisan Review, New York, February 1948).