Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ (Barcelona, 1893 – Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
“Les essències de la terra,” 1968.
Artist’s book with color lithographs. Copy 665.
Published by Ediciones Polígrafa, Barcelona.
Measurements: 33.5 x 41 cm.

“Les essències de la terra” is one of the most representative artist’s books from Joan Miró’s mature graphic period, conceived as a visual celebration of the primordial symbols of his creative universe. The cover and interior pages display a vibrant visual language, dominated by large black strokes, stars, dots, splashes of color, and organic forms that seem to float on the paper with a free and almost cosmic energy.

The title refers to one of Miró’s essential ideas: the earth as origin, fertile matter, and elemental force. Without depicting a landscape in a literal sense, the artist evokes its “essences” through signs, rhythms, and symbolic presences. Red, blue, green, and yellow appear as nuclei of energy, while the black line acts as a vital structure, halfway between gesture, writing, and constellation.

“Les essències de la terra” condenses, with extraordinary freedom, his most recognizable vocabulary: the telluric, the astral, the playful, and the essential.

Joan Miró was one of the key figures in 20th-century art. His artistic language—close to Surrealism yet deeply personal—revitalized painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, and printmaking through a vocabulary of signs, colors, and essential forms. His work is represented in institutions such as the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Mallorca, the Museo Reina Sofía, MoMA in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate in London.