Relationship between Joan Miró and Henri Matisse explored in new exhibition

A new exhibition in Barcelona's Miró Museum explores the relationship between Joan Miró and legendary French Fauvist artist, Henri Matisse.

On display are dozens of works from Matisse placed alongside Miró paintings, showing comparisons and contrasts in their art. What most defines the two artists' commonalities is that they both "revolutionized painting totally" in the 20th century, according to Marko Daniel, director of the Fundació Miró in Barcelona. 

"The way we look at art now in the first half of the 21st century could not have happened without the things that Miró and Matisse did 100 years ago," Daniel said.  

The exhibition, titled 'Beyond Images', brings together works from prestigious international collections such as the MoMa in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Musée de Grenoble, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Belgium, and The Saint Louis Art Museum, among others.

At first glance, the two might seem to belong to very different aesthetic approaches: decorative harmony in the case of Matisse, disturbing strangeness in Miró’s. Nevertheless, the pair were engaged in artistic dialogue throughout their careers.

'Beyond Images' focuses on decisive moments in this dialogue: the influence of Fauvism on Miró, and the energetic stimulation Miró’s work provided for Matisse. 

The exhibition aims to investigate the deep, lasting and constructive relationships between both artists in terms of their conceptions of art and their works.

"They both went out of their way to break with the past, to change the way we look at painting, and in fact, the way we look at the world," Marko Daniel told Catalan News.

"I would say it’s not an exaggeration to say that we couldn’t look at the world today the way we do if it hadn’t been for Miró and Matisse, and particularly for the way in which they work together and looked at each other’s work."

Pierre Matisse, Henri’s son, was Miró’s art dealer in New York, and he acted as a bridge between his father and the Catalan artist and consolidated their artistic and personal bond. 

Speaking to the Catalan News Agency (ACN), the curator of the exhibition, Rémi Labrusse, explained that 'Beyond Images' shows that the two artists shared a common inspiration: "There is neither a teacher nor a disciple."

In fact, according to Labrusse, at certain times Miró, who was 23 years younger than Matisse, had a greater impact on the work of the French painter.

The exhibition also explores the deep admiration the two painters had of each other in the 1930s, when Matisse was going through a creative crisis that led him to question his own work. During this time, the Frenchman studied and kept some of Miró's works, which helped him restart his artistic approach.

"For Miró, Matisse was the older, established artist when he started out as a painter, he looked up to Matisse as one of the greats," Daniel explains. The 23-year age gap between the pair was big enough that Miró "to become a little bit critical of some of the things Matisse was doing, and assert his own identity." 

Matisse, on the other hand, was "really interested in the way Miró brought new ideas and a new vision to painting," particularly in the 1930s when the French artist was undergoing doubts in his creative work.  

‘Beyond Images’, is open from October 25 to February 9 in the Fundació Miró.