Woman and Birds in Front of the Sun

Joan Miro's Woman and Birds in Front of the Sun (1942) is a pen and brush and black ink, watercolor and gouache, with wiping and scraping, and touches of pastel on cream wove paper. This work combines multiple media to create a richly varied surface. The subject, as the title indicates, shows a woman and birds in front of the sun, the sun perhaps represented by a circle or disk that dominates the composition. The woman and birds are rendered in Miro's characteristic vocabulary of simplified forms, the lines and shapes suggesting their presence without describing them in detail. The watercolor and gouache provide luminous color, the pen and brush and ink provide linear structure, and the wiping and scraping create texture. The touches of pastel add soft accents of color. This work dates from 1942, the same year as People, Birds, and Stars, and it similarly creates a vision of harmony between the human, natural, and celestial realms.

Miro's wartime works are among his most poetically charged, creating a world of imagination that offered an alternative to the violence and destruction of the war.

This mixed-media work of a woman and birds in front of the sun creates a radiant vision of harmony between human and nature, the varied media and bright colors conveying a sense of joy and life.