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Joan Miró: I Work Like a Gardener
In 1958, artist Joan Miró and critic Yvon Taillandier sat down for an in-depth discussion on Miró's life and work. Their conversation, one of the most illuminating and insightful looks into Miró's philosophy and creative process, was first published in a limited edition of seventy five copies in 1964. Though long out of print, this bilingual "treasure," in the words of Maria Popova, "remains the most direct and comprehensive record of Miró's ideas on art." This beautiful new edition presents an updated English translation of Miró's invaluable text in an elegant and striking package. In addition to Taillandier's original foreword, a new preface by preeminent Miró scholar Robert Lubar provides wider context and insight. An appendix includes the original French text in its entirety. Joan Miró: I Work Like a Gardener brings to life the words and work of one of the most beloved and influential artists of the twentieth century.
80 pages, Hardcover
Published October 10, 2017
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339 people want to read
About the author
Joan Miró
250 books16 followersJoan Miró (Barcelona 1893 - Palma 1983). Nascut al Passatge del crédit, els seus paisatges emocionals, els que el formaran com a persona i artista, són sobretot Mont-roig, París, Mallorca i més tard Nova York i el Japó. Mont-roig, una petita població de la comarca del Baix Camp, serà el contrapunt de l’agitació intel·lectual que viu a París als anys vint al costat dels poetes surrealistes, i de l’estímul de l’expressionisme abstracte que descobreix a Nova York als anys quaranta. Més endavant, en plena Segona Guerra Mundial, Joan Miró deixarà l’exili a França i s’instal·larà a Palma, espai de refugi i de treball, on el seu amic Josep Lluís Sert dissenyarà el taller que sempre havia somiat. L’arrelament al paisatge de Mont-roig primer i al de Mallorca després serà determinant en la seva obra. El vincle amb la terra i l’interès pels objectes quotidians i per l’entorn natural seran el rerefons d’algunes de les seves investigacions tècniques i formals. Miró fuig de l’academicisme, a la cerca constant d’una obra global i pura, no adscrita a cap moviment determinat. Contingut en les maneres i en les manifestacions públiques, és a través del fet plàstic on Joan Miró mostra la seva rebel·lia i una gran sensibilitat pels esdeveniments polítics i socials que l’envolten. Aquest contrast de forces és el que el portarà a crear un llenguatge únic i personalíssim que el situa com un dels artistes més influents del segle XX.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
January 4, 2018
1. This was a beautiful glimpse of the artist behind the art- how he works, what drives him, and how he sees the world. Miró's love for stillness was catching.
2. I love the sensitivity to the world shown in here. Magic created by simply seeing.
A few excerpts:
"Stillness makes me think of great spaces in which movements take place that do not stop at any given moment, movements with no end."
"I begin my pictures under the effect of a shock that makes me escape from reality. The cause of this shock may be a tiny thread sticking up from the canvas, a falling drop of water, or a print made by my finger on the shining surface of a table." "And so a single thread can set a world in motion."
"The encounter between instrument and material produces a shock, which is something alive and from which I believe there will be a repercussion on the spectator."
2. I love the sensitivity to the world shown in here. Magic created by simply seeing.
A few excerpts:
"Stillness makes me think of great spaces in which movements take place that do not stop at any given moment, movements with no end."
"I begin my pictures under the effect of a shock that makes me escape from reality. The cause of this shock may be a tiny thread sticking up from the canvas, a falling drop of water, or a print made by my finger on the shining surface of a table." "And so a single thread can set a world in motion."
"The encounter between instrument and material produces a shock, which is something alive and from which I believe there will be a repercussion on the spectator."
December 6, 2021
What a beautiful book! Potentially my favourite passage:
“I begin my pictures under the effect of a shock that makes me escape from reality. The cause of this shock may be a tiny thread sticking up from the canvas, a falling drop of water, or a print made by my finger on the shining surface of a table. In any case, I need a point of departure, even if only a speck of dust or flash of light. This form produces a series of things, one giving birth to another. And so a single thread can set a world in motion. I come to a world from something considered dead. And when I give it a title, it becomes even more alive.”
“I begin my pictures under the effect of a shock that makes me escape from reality. The cause of this shock may be a tiny thread sticking up from the canvas, a falling drop of water, or a print made by my finger on the shining surface of a table. In any case, I need a point of departure, even if only a speck of dust or flash of light. This form produces a series of things, one giving birth to another. And so a single thread can set a world in motion. I come to a world from something considered dead. And when I give it a title, it becomes even more alive.”
November 20, 2017
I adore this book. To me it is a bit like Paul Rand’s ‘Thoughts on Design’ ... such a concentrate. Crazy how briefly so much of life, poetry and work can be described in such depth. A huge book. Physically almost non-existent in volume ❤️
January 7, 2018
Tiny book, but each paragraph is a gem. Miró explains his artistic process in a way that is extremely rare in its self-awareness, conciseness and depth.
This was originally published in 1963, just 145 copies signed by Miró himself. Glad that someone decided to reprint it in such an elegant edition, with full text in the original French and all.
The first paragraphs give a sense of the soul-searching of Miró throughout the text:
"By nature, I am tragic and taciturn. In my youth, I endured periods of great sadness. Now, I'm fairly well-balanced, but everything is appalling: life, to me, seems absurd. It's not natural, I just feel this way. I'm a pessimist - I just think that everything is always going to turn out very badly. If there's anything humorous about my painting, it's not been consciously sought. The humor comes, perhaps, from the need I feel to escape the tragic side of my temperament. It's a reaction, but an involuntary one. "
This was originally published in 1963, just 145 copies signed by Miró himself. Glad that someone decided to reprint it in such an elegant edition, with full text in the original French and all.
The first paragraphs give a sense of the soul-searching of Miró throughout the text:
"By nature, I am tragic and taciturn. In my youth, I endured periods of great sadness. Now, I'm fairly well-balanced, but everything is appalling: life, to me, seems absurd. It's not natural, I just feel this way. I'm a pessimist - I just think that everything is always going to turn out very badly. If there's anything humorous about my painting, it's not been consciously sought. The humor comes, perhaps, from the need I feel to escape the tragic side of my temperament. It's a reaction, but an involuntary one. "
April 13, 2018
Great for inspiration
Read
May 18, 2021"I work like a gardener or a winemaker. Things come slowly. My vocabulary of forms, for example—I didn't discover it all at once. It formed itself almost in spite of me. Things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. I must graft. I must water, as with lettuce. Ripening goes on in my mind. So I'm always working at a great many things at the same time. And even in different fields: painting, engraving, lithography, sculpture, ceramics."
"Art can die; what matters is that it scatters seeds on the ground."
"Art can die; what matters is that it scatters seeds on the ground."
September 13, 2018
A tiny little book, but lovely thoughts on emptiness, stillness, silence: "A pebble, a finite and motionless object, suggests to me not only movement but movement without end. ... What I seek, in fact, is a motionless movement--something equivalent to what's called the eloquence of silence, or what St. John of the Cross meant by the words, I believe, 'mute music.'" (p. 28)
" ...silence is a denial of noise, but as a result, the slightest noise in silence becomes enormous. The same practice makes me seek the noise hidden in silence, the movement in stillness, life in the inanimate, the infinite in the finite, forms in space, and myself in anonymity." (pp 60-61)
" ...silence is a denial of noise, but as a result, the slightest noise in silence becomes enormous. The same practice makes me seek the noise hidden in silence, the movement in stillness, life in the inanimate, the infinite in the finite, forms in space, and myself in anonymity." (pp 60-61)
January 17, 2018
This short book provides insights into the art and the creative process of the great Catalonian artist Joan Miró.
December 9, 2021
কিছুক্ষণের জন্য বইটায় বুদ হয়ে ছিলাম। গল্প বলি। ইউটিউবে ছোট একটা ভিডিও করবো বলে ছোট্ট একটা ফাইল নামালাম। তারা নিয়ে। এর শেষে ছিলো ভ্যানগগের বিখ্যাত Starry Night। এর পাশেই ছিলো আরেকটি ছবি। সুন্দর সেই ছবির নাম Constellation। আমার কভার পিক। চিত্রশিল্পীর নাম জোয়ান মিরো। ব্যাস কভার পিক দিয়ে হালকা খোঁজাখুজি থেকেই এ বই।
বইটা মূলত মিরোর ইন্টারভিউ থেকে কম্পাইল করে লেখা৷ ইন্টারভিউ আর কম্পাইল দু'টোই করেছেন Yvon Taillandier। প্যারাগ্রাফ আকারে শুধু মিরোর কথাগুলো স্থান পেয়েছে বইতে। ৩-৪ পৃষ্ঠা লেখা অতপর একটিকরে মিরোর চিত্রকর্ম – এভাবেই বইটা সাজানো। বলা প্রয়োজন, লেখার মূল ভাষা ফরাসি। সেখান থেকে ইংরেজিতে অনুবাদ করা হয়েছে৷ Appendix অংশে ফরাসিতে মূল লেখাটিও দেওয়া আছে।
৮০ পৃষ্ঠার ছোট এই বইতে মূলত মিরোর দর্শন ও ক্রিয়েটিভ প্রোসেস উঠে এসেছে। শিল্পকর্মকে ঘিরে তার অনুভূতি ও চিন্তার স্পষ্ট ও সহজ ছাপ পাওয়া যাবে বইতে৷ প্রতিটা প্যারাই যেনো জেম।
কিছু লেখা কোট করে রেখেছিলাম পড়ার সময়৷ সেগুলো নিচে তুলে দিচ্ছি।
"For me an object is alive; this cigarette, this matchbox, contain a secret life much more intense than that of most humans."
"Stillness strikes me. This bottle, this glass, a large stone on a deserted beach— these are motionless things, but they set in motion great movements in my mind. I don’t feel this with a human who moves about all the time in an idiotic way. People who go bathing on a beach and who move about impress me much less than the stillness of a pebble. (Still things become grand, much grander than moving things.) Stillness makes me think of great spaces in which movements take place that do not stop at a given moment, movements with no end. It is, as Kant said, the immediate irruption of the infinite in the finite."
"In an artwork, you should be able to discover new things every time you see it. But you can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it for the rest of your life. For me, a picture should be like sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem. It must have radiance; it must be like those stones that Pyrenean shepherds use to light their pipes. More than the picture itself, what counts is what it throws into the air, what it exhales. It doesn’t matter if the image is destroyed. Art can die; what matters is that it scatters seeds on the ground."
"Two and two don’t make four. They only make four to an accountant. But we mustn’t stop there; the picture must make everything clear; it must fertilize the imagination. I don’t rule out the possibility that a businessman, looking at one of my pictures, might discover the means of doing a deal, or a scholar, the means of solving a problem. The solution offered by a picture is a solution of a general order applicable to all sorts of other fields."
"The history of nations is one of bureaucracy. It’s not a question of being a bureaucrat, but a man. In becoming truly a man, one becomes capable of touching all men, Negro or Chinese, a southerner as well as a northerner. But, to become truly a man, it’s necessary to become detached from one’s false self. In my case, I must stop being Miró, that is, a Spanish painter belonging to a society limited by frontiers, by social and bureaucratic conventions."
"Anonymity allows me to renounce myself, but in renouncing myself I come to affirm myself even more. In the same way that silence is a denial of noise, but as a result, the slightest noise in silence becomes enormous.The same practice makes me seek the noise hidden in silence, the movement in stillness, life in the inanimate, the infinite in the finite, forms in space, and myself in anonymity."
বইটা মূলত মিরোর ইন্টারভিউ থেকে কম্পাইল করে লেখা৷ ইন্টারভিউ আর কম্পাইল দু'টোই করেছেন Yvon Taillandier। প্যারাগ্রাফ আকারে শুধু মিরোর কথাগুলো স্থান পেয়েছে বইতে। ৩-৪ পৃষ্ঠা লেখা অতপর একটিকরে মিরোর চিত্রকর্ম – এভাবেই বইটা সাজানো। বলা প্রয়োজন, লেখার মূল ভাষা ফরাসি। সেখান থেকে ইংরেজিতে অনুবাদ করা হয়েছে৷ Appendix অংশে ফরাসিতে মূল লেখাটিও দেওয়া আছে।
৮০ পৃষ্ঠার ছোট এই বইতে মূলত মিরোর দর্শন ও ক্রিয়েটিভ প্রোসেস উঠে এসেছে। শিল্পকর্মকে ঘিরে তার অনুভূতি ও চিন্তার স্পষ্ট ও সহজ ছাপ পাওয়া যাবে বইতে৷ প্রতিটা প্যারাই যেনো জেম।
কিছু লেখা কোট করে রেখেছিলাম পড়ার সময়৷ সেগুলো নিচে তুলে দিচ্ছি।
"For me an object is alive; this cigarette, this matchbox, contain a secret life much more intense than that of most humans."
"Stillness strikes me. This bottle, this glass, a large stone on a deserted beach— these are motionless things, but they set in motion great movements in my mind. I don’t feel this with a human who moves about all the time in an idiotic way. People who go bathing on a beach and who move about impress me much less than the stillness of a pebble. (Still things become grand, much grander than moving things.) Stillness makes me think of great spaces in which movements take place that do not stop at a given moment, movements with no end. It is, as Kant said, the immediate irruption of the infinite in the finite."
"In an artwork, you should be able to discover new things every time you see it. But you can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it for the rest of your life. For me, a picture should be like sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem. It must have radiance; it must be like those stones that Pyrenean shepherds use to light their pipes. More than the picture itself, what counts is what it throws into the air, what it exhales. It doesn’t matter if the image is destroyed. Art can die; what matters is that it scatters seeds on the ground."
"Two and two don’t make four. They only make four to an accountant. But we mustn’t stop there; the picture must make everything clear; it must fertilize the imagination. I don’t rule out the possibility that a businessman, looking at one of my pictures, might discover the means of doing a deal, or a scholar, the means of solving a problem. The solution offered by a picture is a solution of a general order applicable to all sorts of other fields."
"The history of nations is one of bureaucracy. It’s not a question of being a bureaucrat, but a man. In becoming truly a man, one becomes capable of touching all men, Negro or Chinese, a southerner as well as a northerner. But, to become truly a man, it’s necessary to become detached from one’s false self. In my case, I must stop being Miró, that is, a Spanish painter belonging to a society limited by frontiers, by social and bureaucratic conventions."
"Anonymity allows me to renounce myself, but in renouncing myself I come to affirm myself even more. In the same way that silence is a denial of noise, but as a result, the slightest noise in silence becomes enormous.The same practice makes me seek the noise hidden in silence, the movement in stillness, life in the inanimate, the infinite in the finite, forms in space, and myself in anonymity."
August 12, 2025
In this book Miro talks about his working methods, which involved the physical labour involved in the creative process, the need to allow thoughts to germinate and take root, the studio as a laboratory for the cross-fertilisation of ideas and a deep engagement with the materials elements of his art.
With these principles firmly established, Miro pushed is art in new directions in his later years.
Miro found his subjects in the creative process itself, raising the ideas of chance and spontaneity
Miro was moved by everyday objects.
People who go bathing on a beach and who moved about impressed him much less than the stillness of a pebble.
Miro described the battle between him and his canvas as distress, and this struggle was passionately exciting to him, he worked until the distress left him.
He stated that he found the title of his works gradually as he worked, once he found the titles he loved in its atmosphere and the title becames 100% reality, for him the title was an exact reality.
He thought of his studio as a kitchen garden, where leaves must be cut so the fruit can grow, at the right moment he must prune. He work like a gardener. Things came slowly.
He said in an artwork you should be able to discover new things every time you see it.
With a painting, in fact, we shouldn't care whether it remains as it is, but rather, whether it sows seeds from which things will spring.
With these principles firmly established, Miro pushed is art in new directions in his later years.
Miro found his subjects in the creative process itself, raising the ideas of chance and spontaneity
Miro was moved by everyday objects.
People who go bathing on a beach and who moved about impressed him much less than the stillness of a pebble.
Miro described the battle between him and his canvas as distress, and this struggle was passionately exciting to him, he worked until the distress left him.
He stated that he found the title of his works gradually as he worked, once he found the titles he loved in its atmosphere and the title becames 100% reality, for him the title was an exact reality.
He thought of his studio as a kitchen garden, where leaves must be cut so the fruit can grow, at the right moment he must prune. He work like a gardener. Things came slowly.
He said in an artwork you should be able to discover new things every time you see it.
With a painting, in fact, we shouldn't care whether it remains as it is, but rather, whether it sows seeds from which things will spring.
April 11, 2021
I only wish this were longer. What a beautiful peek into the brain of a creative genius. I spent so much time mentally highlighting inspiring sentences and daydreaming about Miró's work. This is a great quick read for anyone interested in creative process or this artist's work.
June 16, 2021
A short chat about art and motivations. Miro seems drawn to opposites- sadness produces happy pictures, immobile images generate the idea of mobility. Because he takes us to unconsidered areas - and because of the extreme shortness of the book- it is worth a look.
June 21, 2021
As a fan of Miró, and as a creator myself, I probably enjoyed this book more than most, but it still has some hidden wisdoms to check out. Mostly this book might work as an easy gateway to make you curious about the rest of the wonderful world of the artist.
April 16, 2023
Love this quote: “Anonymous work should be both collective and very personal. Everyone should do what they want, as naturally as breathing. But they should have no ulterior motive and wish to sign their breath.”
December 23, 2017
Will be helpful for my novel, actually.
February 10, 2019
A beautifully designed book with short but potent reflections on Miro.
February 27, 2020
I found this book to be informative. It allowed a true window into the mind of this extraordinary artist. Highly recommended.
February 26, 2021
Sweet and slight, sort of a "Steal Like An Artist" kind of pocketbook worth thinking about from time to time.
April 5, 2021
It's a mini-book, some pics of paintings, some pages have a poetic feel. It's a good & fun.
July 30, 2021
The philosophy of Miro, in his own words, is explained along with 10 images of his works.
October 6, 2022
"The march of the world is leading toward collectivity."
July 31, 2024
Honest words.
November 28, 2024
I lovely, short string of ideas about art and the creative process. I’ll definitely be revisiting this again and again
January 4, 2025
Very short (more like a long essay) but informative. The French translation is in the back.
November 30, 2025
A short but strong credo on the work and creation of art
March 30, 2018
Slender Miró monologue reflecting on his practice, handsomely bound and illustrated with numerous paintings from the 1910s to the late 60's. A worthy if brief read.
May 18, 2020
Maybe it's a beautiful edition in print, but it's just a few pages of quotes by Miro and as an ebook definitely not worth the expense.
December 30, 2017
An easy, little book I picked up at Bird Library, SU, in the New Books, Art section, which has a lot to teach about books in general, and collecting. Making full use of my one semester tuition, I enjoyed reading about the artist's view of life.
March 19, 2018
The main point of this book is that creative work is slow, and we must work like gardeners planting seeds and allowing things to ripen in their own time. This is an idea that is necessary in our world of instant everything- where it feels like we are always rushing.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews