Joan Miró painted The Birth of the World at Montroig in late summer or fall 1925. The large oil on canvas, now at the Museum of Modern Art, combines two different procedures. He first poured, brushed, and flung paint across an unevenly prepared surface, then added forms developed through preparatory studies.
The gray-brown ground is streaked, spotted, and uneven, with paint sinking into some areas more readily than others. Against it, a red circle, black angular shape, white head, and slender lines appear unusually clear. They can suggest familiar things, including a balloon or bird, although their scale and relationships resist a coherent everyday scene.
The painting brings spontaneous marks into contact with careful placement. Its emptier passages matter as much as its small cast of signs, keeping the viewer aware of the surrounding field. Miró's approach provides a useful connection between Surrealist experimentation and later expressive abstraction, while the distinct layers make the physical process of painting especially visible.
Gorky Agony painting
