Le Scorpion Joufflu

Joan Miró - Le scorpion joufflu

Le scorpion joufflu is a work by Joan Miró created in 1978, in a mature phase of his career, when the artist had already consolidated a personal language founded on the simplification of forms, the use of line and a strong chromatic freedom. The work fully reflects that research which had led André Breton to define Miró as "the most surrealist of us all".

The composition is dominated by a central figure constructed through black lines, essential forms and areas of intense color. Red, yellow and blue emerge powerfully against the more subdued background, creating an immediate contrast and conferring on the figure an almost symbolic character. As often happens in Miró's works, the subject is not described in a naturalistic way, but transformed into a presence suspended between recognizable image and abstract invention.

The title, Le scorpion joufflu, suggests the presence of a scorpion reinterpreted through the artist's visual vocabulary. The figure indeed assumes a fantastic appearance, far from a realistic representation of the animal. Miró reduces the form to a few essential elements and allows line, color and the balance between full and empty spaces to construct its identity.

The work also demonstrates the central role of graphic art in the artist's production. Since the 1920s Miró had experimented with lithographs, etchings and other engraving techniques, considered not as mere reproduction tools but as genuine means of research. In this engraving the line maintains a free and immediate quality, while aquatint allows for softer color areas and tonal variations that amplify the depth of the composition.

Created in the final years of his activity, Le scorpion joufflu testifies to the radicality of Miró's research, oriented towards increasingly essential forms independent from visible reality. The result is an image in which figurative and abstract elements coexist in balance, according to a poetics founded on imagination and the continuous transformation of forms.

Le scorpion joufflu is an etching and aquatint on paper from 1978. The work measures 44 x 23.5 cm, with sheet 63.4 x 46 cm, is signed in original by the artist and belongs to a limited edition of 30 copies. It is catalogued in the catalogue raisonné with the reference D.1011.

Joan Miró, Le scorpion joufflu: Prices and Quotations

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Discover the selection of graphic works and engravings available on our site and explore the production of one of the main protagonists of Surrealism and twentieth-century art.

Joan Mirò - Le Scorpion Joufflu - Limited Edition of 50 Copies - 1978

Joan Miró: paintings and biography

Surrealist artist Joan Miró was a Spanish painter, ceramist and sculptor of the 20th century. The painter and critic André Breton described him as “the most Surrealist of us all”.

The first years of Joan Miró: life of a young talent

Joan Miró (1893-1983) was born from the marriage of a goldsmith and watchmaker, Miquel Miró Adzerias, to Dolores Ferrà of Oromi. Miró's first approach to drawing took place when he was only eight years old. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, he devoted himself to perfecting his artistic technique, in parallel with his business studies.  

For the young Joan Miró, Barcelona was a springboard. Here he attended Galí Academy and Sant Lluc Artistic Circle, getting in touch with leading figures in the art world and discovering Fauvism.

Then he was later attracted by the community around Montparnasse. It was in Paris that Joan Miró met Picasso, one of the most famous painters and sculptors of the 20th century. The Dadaist circle of Tristan Tzara had also significant influence on Miró's art. Thanks to the contagious power of the poets and writers of Surrealism, Miró’s interest shifted to Abstract Art.

After his marriage with Pilar Juncosa in 1929, Joan Miró began his artistic experimentation, producing lithographs, etchings and sculptures, being introduced to painting on tar paper and glass, and to the Surrealist technique of grattage (the artist “scratched” freshly applied paint onto canvas or other support).

Among this period’s main works by Joan Miró, Harlequin's Carnival, The Farm and Peinture (Étoile bleue) are emblematic examples.

Joan Miró: The Farm

Painted between 1921 and 1922 in oil on canvas by Joan Miró, The Farm measures 123.8x141.3 cm.

The subject represented in the work by Joan Miró The Farm is one of the artist's childhood places. It is the family farm in Montroig del Camp, Catalonia. Signs of the Surrealist and Abstract influences are still absent. Instead, Miró's tendency to represent reality in a naïve style prevails.

Joan Miró: Harlequin's Carnival

Painted in oil on canvas between 1924 and 1925 by Joan Miró, Harlequin's Carnival measures 66x90.5 cm.

Despite preceding the publication of the Surrealist manifesto, in Harlequin's Carnival Miró scrupulously implemented its program, using psychic automatism, a technique that involved bodily efforts in order to stimulate fantastic and surreal visions. In Harlequin's Carnival, Joan Miró painted a large space with floating objects that narrate and invite us to take part in one of his visions.

Some references to the real world are recognizable: a black triangle representing the Eiffel Tower, a cat, a table, a ladder, a fish. But in Miró paintings, the real is transformed and reinvented, resulting in a new world that no longer responds - as in the earlier The Farm - to the visible world, but only to imagination.

The years of celebrity of Joan Miró: Surrealism and contempt for conventional painting

After having settled between Majorca and Montroig, Joan Miró increasingly embraced the current of André Breton, who described him as "the most surrealist of us all". In the writings of that time by Joan Miró, Surrealism and conventional painting are portrayed as two conflicting worlds.

In his first monograph, Joan Miró described his desire to "assassinate" conventional painting in order to create new means of expression. At the end of the 1940s, the artist began to work on loose ceramic pieces and bronze sculptures.

After a decade, Joan Miró had become an established artist: the prize for graphics at the Venice Biennale and the International Guggenheim Prize are among his greatest achievements. In 1972 the Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona) was founded. Six years later, the artist created in the same city the sculpture Dona i ocell, now located in Joan Miró Park.

Works by Joan Miró such as Femme et oiseaux devant la lune, Dona en la nuit and Le Soleil rouge belong to this period.

Joan Miró: Femmes et oiseaux devant la lune

In the artwork by Joan Miró Femmes et oiseaux devant la lune, the theme of sexuality is linked to the one of night, described in a series of works Miró between 1942 and 1949. In Femmes et oiseaux devant la lune Miró enchants us with his childlike yet confident strokes.

In the work by Joan Miró Femmes et oiseaux, the simplification of forms is at its greatest. The figures appear as signs, floating between black patches and a few strong colours, in lively contrast with the background, whose ochre colour is highlighted by the rough canvas support.

The last years of Joan Miró

After the fall of Francoism, the artist was finally awarded in his homeland. A few examples are the honorary degree from the University of Barcelona and the Medalla d'Or from the Generalitat de Catalunya. Most of Joan Miró works date from this period: ceramics and paintings on glass engaged the artist during the 1980s.

In the last years of his life, Joan Miró style was influenced by his more radical ideas. The artist became interested in gaseous sculpture and four-dimensional painting. He died in Majorca at the age of 90.

Among the works from this phase of the career of Joan Miró, Constellations, Labyrinth and The Acid Melodies are emblematic examples.

Joan Miró: Constellations

The series by Joan Miró Constellations was completed in the last years of her life. It summarizes twenty years of the artist's life and research.

The series, consisting of 23 works, is a small-format cycle. Each work arose from an accident: the accidental cleaning of brushes on the support. In Constellations Miró described his controversial and visceral relationship with reality, conceived the surrounding world as a starting point for a journey to the stars.

André Breton described Miró Constellations as "superb paintings, from which a torrent of love and freedom flows". The large canvases, through plastic and sometimes aggressive colours, let Joan Miró's ideology emerge: art becomes a process of discovery.

Joan Miró paintings: for sale with prices and values on Deodato Arte

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