Bas-relief

Between 1928 and 1934 Joan Miró approaches the techniques of collage and building objects as a means of anti-pictorial rebellion against the traditional concepts of art. In his final period, from the sixties onwards, he aims to create a series of works that preserve his traditional and fascinating attraction to objects, yet the clear desire to build a corpus of sculptures leads him to the use of one of the most ancient techniques from this discipline: casting.The Museo Reina Sofía’s collection of Miró sculptures, consisting of 43 works dating from 1967 to 1981, responds to this criterion. They are works that arise from a great variety of always humble objects, and that after a long process of definition in which he prepared a multitude of drawings and sketches, was completed with the casting and the patinating of the bronze in the Parellada workshop in Barcelona.Bas-relief (Bas-relief, 1969), made using sand moulded casting, Miró alludes to the concept of painting in several ways: the motif, the exclusive flat frontal view (obverse and reverse) and the fact that it is a single piece, unique in a bronze sculpture. The work, with a title that simply describes the sculptural technique used to make it, is, however, centred on the pictorial line shown on the raised relief that is resting on the wooden planks supporting it. In 1962 Miró refers to this idea as one of the qualities of his painting: "By way of the scarce lines that I draw, I try to give the expression a quality so individual that it becomes almost anonymous and thus achieves the universality of the act. Hence, […] a certain relation with what could be considered a meditative or contemplative painting".

Carmen Fernández Aparicio