Joan Miro: I Work Like a Gardener (Interview with Joan Miro on his creative process)

The best introduction to Miro — “I Work Like a Gardener” — is just 86 pages, with 10 color illustrations. The words come from an 1958 interview. Miro was 65. It was an ideal time to seek him out. He had been looking at old work that had been put in storage, was creating a large retrospective for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and was making two large murals for UNESCO — he could look back and, because he would be vital to the end of his life, look forward. It’s a quick, bracing read in a small (5” x 7”) yellow hardcover. Among its other virtues, it’s a great gift.What comes across in this interview is great compression: ideas that have been lived and tested, then stated in language that is both lofty and direct. It starts like this:"By nature, I am tragic and taciturn. In my youth, I endured periods of great sadness. Now, I’m fairly well-balanced, but everything is appalling: life, to me, seems absurd. It’s not natural, I just feel this way. I’m a pessimist – I just think that everything is always going to turn out very badly.""If there’s anything humorous about my painting, it’s not been consciously sought. The humor comes, perhaps, from the need I feel to escape the tragic side of my temperament. It’s a reaction, but an involuntary one."Here are some samples of his insights into his process — and much more:"The spectacle of the sky overwhelms me. I am overwhelmed when I see a crescent moon or the sun in an immense sky. In my paintings there are often tiny forms in vast empty spaces. Empty spaces, empty horizons, empty plains – everything that has been stripped bare has always made a strong impression on me.""I think of my studio as a vegetable garden, where things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. You have to graft. You have to water.""For me an object is something living. This cigarette or this box of matches contains a secret life much more intense than that of certain human beings."His biography suggests some reasons for his fascination with the objects of our daily lives. Born in Barcelona, he was the son of a blacksmith and jeweler. He burned to be an artist, which required him to move to Paris. Early on, Picasso bought one of his painting. “When I first knew Miró,” Ernest Hemingway wrote in 1934, “he had very little money and very little to eat, and he worked all day every day for nine months painting a very large and wonderful picture called ‘The Farm.'” Hemingway bought it for the then astounding price of 5,000 francs.Miro’s life was streamlined. “I have often seen him bent over a sheet of paper, and flick off a grain of dust that has just alighted on it: each time the practised gesture is just the same,” noted the critic Jacques Dupin. “Nothing is left to chance, not even in his daily habits: there is a time to take a walk, a time to read, there is a time to be with his family and there is a time to work.”He was rooted. And, at the same time, sky-bound. “We Catalans believe that you must plant your feet firmly on the ground if you want to be able to jump high in the air,” he said. “The fact I come down to earth from time to time makes it possible to jump higher.”

Full color plates. Large easy to read font. Exquisite treasure. Small slim volume yet challenging, intriguing, and inspiring. A must have for every Artist, or Writer.

This is not a bad book. It just isn't a very good one. Add to that a title that relates to one sentence in the book, and I gave it a three rating. I happen to relate many things in my work to a garden. And, I am taken by Miro's work. Plus, the book isn't expensive. Can't miss...Again, I was hoping for more garden-related metaphors (more than one). Anyway, as I said, this isn't a bad book. It just isn't a very good one.

This book is a window into the creative process used by Miro. It is not an instructional manual, but a narrative that provides an inspirational view on how one might think of one's own creative process. I really enjoyed reading it and know I will read it over and over again!

Few books are so beautifully constructed from the outside, relating directly to the subject matter inside -This lovely little book brings fresh light to MIro's thoughts on how he thinks about art, - creativity - process.

I love gardening, painting, and Miro, so this little book is a treasure. Most of all, it elucidates Miro's beautiful thoughts on his painting process, the blank canvas, and space. The text is from an interview Miro gave to the French artist Yves Taillandier in 1958. This book would make a great gift for the art lovers in your life. It has a lovely yellow fabric cover, a bookmark ribbon, and ten color illustrations.

I have ordered this 3 times now as gifts and it’s awesome.

Beautiful but too short. The kindle version has great images but it's disappointing that half of the book consists in the french translation of the interview.

Good book, if a little short

I did not dislike anything I was a BIRTHDAY GIFT

A wonderful little book.

Very small book and readable in 30 min, nice to have but I expected more.