Le passage de l’oiseau divin (The Passage of the Divine Bird)
Artist: Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893-1983)
Date: 1941
Dimensions:
painting: 18 x 14 7/8 in. (45.7 x 37.8 cm)
framed: 26 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (79.7 x 72.1 cm)
Medium: gouache and oil
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1996.21
Label Text:Joan Miró created the 23 paintings of his Constellations series in France and Spain from January 1940 to September 1941, during World War II. He had fled to France in 1939 to escape the military dictatorship of General Francisco Franco in Spain. Miró explained that the series "had its source in music and nature. It was about the time that the war broke out. I felt a deep desire to escape. I closed myself within myself purposely. The night, music, and the stars began to play a major role in suggesting my paintings …."
Miró painted the final work in the series, Passage of the Divine Bird—a teeming, interconnected “constellation” of fantastic figures, floating eyes, and abstract shapes—shortly after he returned to his family farm in Mont-Roig del Camp, Spain. Here, stars and other celestial motifs, strung like beads, dance across a brilliant chromatic space. As an image of balance and harmony on a cosmic scale, this painting expresses Miró’s renewed faith in humanity’s place in the universe.
Miró painted the final work in the series, Passage of the Divine Bird—a teeming, interconnected “constellation” of fantastic figures, floating eyes, and abstract shapes—shortly after he returned to his family farm in Mont-Roig del Camp, Spain. Here, stars and other celestial motifs, strung like beads, dance across a brilliant chromatic space. As an image of balance and harmony on a cosmic scale, this painting expresses Miró’s renewed faith in humanity’s place in the universe.
Not on view
In Collection(s)