by Sam ThurstonMiro: “The play of lines and colors, if it does not lay bare the drama of the creator, is nothing more than a bourgeois pastime. The forms expressed by an individual attached to society should disclose the activity of a mind wishing to escape from present reality, which today is particularly ignoble, and seek out new realities, offering other men a possibility of elevation.
If we do not attempt to discover the religious essence and magic meaning of things, we will do nothing but add but new sources of brutishness to those which are offered today to countless people.”
The title [of the painting above] makes me wonder if Miro was thinking about the quote from Joyce's Ulysses "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." Stephen Dedalus's famous complaint. 1939 was certainly a more difficult time than now. There are certainly other places being an artist (or just living) is more stressful than here right now. Perhaps I noticed the quote because it is so rooted in a historical moment- and it made me think of our historical moment- and the way our times push us into being serious or frivolous. Any thoughts?
