The Smile of the Flamboyant Wings

The Smile of the Flamboyant Wings, 1953 is the first in a series of similarly impulsive paintings. Some even feature Miro's handprints - a pleading gesture for which he derived his inspiration from pre-historic cave drawings like this from the French Lascaux. The use of materials and gestures became increasingly important factors in Miro's works. The abstraction in Miro's case the aim was to uncover the mystery of a phenomenon or a form. He was concerned to force the "effective reality of his surroundings to reveal itself even more vividly in a picture. He liked to feel he was on the way towards a new kind of pictorial reality - Cubism encouraged him, but his most profound purpose lay beyond them; he was more attracted by synthesis than by analysis. The artist once said: Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see. Have a great Tuesday!