Joan Miró i Ferrà

JOAN MIRÓ I FERRÀ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
"Porteur de l'eau III", 1962.
Lithograph on paper, copy 26/75.
Signed and numbered by hand.
It has slight foxing.
It presents certificate on the back.
Measurements: 57 x 79 cm.

Porteur de l'eau III belongs to a key stage in the evolution of the graphic language of Joan Miró, in which the artist deepens in the synthesis between figure, sign and space. The work presents a compositional structure based on black lines with gestural strokes and irregular texture, which form a schematic, almost archetypal figure, suspended in an open and silent space.

The central motif poetically evokes the figure of the "water bearer", not from a narrative representation, but through essential signs that suggest balance, load and movement. The circular forms, connected by vertical lines, refer both to containers and to symbolic bodies or organs, while the color accents - red, yellow and green - act as points of visual and emotional energy within the composition.

Black, dominant and structural, establishes the framework of the image, while color is applied with economy and precision, reinforcing the playful and symbolic character of the work. The light background, practically neutral, amplifies the sensation of weightlessness and turns the space into a mental rather than a physical field, a constant in Miró's work since the late 1940s.

In this lithograph we can appreciate the balance between automatism and conscious control: the gesture seems spontaneous, but the arrangement of the elements reveals a carefully thought-out composition. The apparent formal simplicity encloses a complex network of symbolic associations, open to multiple readings, one of the artist's hallmarks.

For Miró, lithography was a privileged means of experimentation, allowing him to explore new textures, densities and relationships between line and color. In the sixties, his graphic work reached full autonomy, placing it on the same level as his painting and sculptural production.

Produced in 1962, Porteur de l'eau III reflects a moment of creative maturity in which Miró transformed an ancestral, everyday figure into a universal symbol, charged with poetry, balance and formal freedom.