Currently, the word Barcelona is associated with design and also with architecture. Every year, many people come to Barcelona to admire Modernisme and the masterpieces of Antoni Gaudí, but Barcelona’s artistic facet goes beyond Gaudí and Modernisme. There are artists who were born in the city or lived there who have become world-renowned figures. One of these artists is Joan Miró. Joan Miró was born in Barcelona and discreetly became a world-renowned artist.
His childhood in Barcelona
Miró was born in Passatge del Crèdit, very close to Plaça Sant Jaume, in Ciutat Vella.
What was Joan Miró’s childhood like? As a child, he painted farmhouses and animals, and as an adult, trees with ears, dogs looking at the moon, and bird-women. According to Miró experts, it was in his childhood that he formed his view of the world, a view he would preserve and retrieve as an archive of childlike innocence.
He went to school very close to his home and already showed an interest in drawing. We know that the school was located at Carrer Regomir, 13, a 15th-century building on a narrow street. It was not an easy time, and Miró himself recalled his time at school as distressing. In fact, to escape this anguish, he enrolled in drawing classes with a teacher named Civil. The first surviving drawings date from 1901.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
All of us have heard this question many times, and Joan Miró was no exception. This important decision would highlight the major disagreements with his father.
When the time came to decide what he wanted to be when he grew up, at fourteen years old, he proposed becoming an artist, but his father wanted Miró to be “someone useful.” At the beginning of the last century, paternal authority was as unquestionable as the Bible, so they reached an agreement: he would study business during the day and art in the evening at La Llotja, the reputable art school still in operation today.
That is why, between 1907 and 1910, he combined his studies, and it was at La Llotja that he had Modest Urgell as a teacher. In fact, Miquel Miró allowed his son to study at La Llotja with the ambition that he would become a goldsmith like him, or that thanks to his accounting studies, he could work in London with his uncle. In fact, English would be another important subject in Joan Miró’s education.
The influence of his teachers
The experience of combining goldsmithing and accounting was not very successful until, thanks to his teacher Josep Pascó, he began to experiment with color. According to Miró himself, the day he understood what could be done with the power of color, he had a kind of epiphany. Pascó placed more importance on perception than on technique, which suited Miró very well.
Another person who had a great influence on Joan Miró was Modest Urgell, who was 64 years old when he was Miró’s teacher. When the weather was good, the students and the teacher would go to Barceloneta or Somorrostro to paint. In fact, if we look at Urgell’s works, we can see which elements impressed the young Miró: long lines drawing a horizon, the division of the canvas into two horizontal lines, and the frequent presence of the moon, the sun, and/or the stars.
Everything related to creation from instinctive perception fit Miró perfectly, but when it came to academic exercises, the young future artist struggled. Academicism and conventionalism were not his strong suit.
That’s why he wasn’t encouraged to continue with the artistic side; despite having a lot of talent for color, he didn’t have much for drawing. To improve his technique, he decided to find a job and perfect his drawing in his free time.
But nothing would go as planned.
A short career… as an accountant
In fact, his father found him a job as an apprentice accountant at the Dalmau i Oliveres drugstore. It must be said that father and son were going through a tense period, as Miquel Miró even followed his son to ensure that he was going to work when he left home.
In this context, and after spending a few months alone in Barcelona with his parents in Mallorca, Miró would exhibit one of his paintings for the first time in Barcelona. It was called Paisatge (Landscape) and is currently in the Harvard Museum. This affirmation as an artist did not prevent strong confrontations with his father, and in 1912, frustrated and tired of the continuous arguments, Joan Miró contracted typhoid fever. And as the saying goes, “he who doesn’t console himself doesn’t want to” his recovery at his parents’ farmhouse in Montroig del Camp would mark a before and after in his life.
To be continued…..
Want to discover more about Miró in Barcelona?
We tell you how Miró’s life intertwines with that of Picasso and Gaudí in Barcelona a century ago