dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
künstler/in (in grau: assistent/innen): Joan Miró, Josep Llorens Artigas, Joan Gardy-Artigastitel: Ceramic muraljahr: adresse: Harkness Commons, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA
+: Offered by Joan Miró as replacement to the damaged wall painting of 1951
The success of the UNESCO murals drew the attention of the world. So it was hardly surprising that Miró should receive further commissions of this sort, al1 of which he carried out with Artigas and his son, Joan Gardy Artigas. The first of the subsequent commissions was for a mural for Harvard University, in- tended to replace a mural painting carried out by Miró in 1951 which had been transferred to the Fogg Museum. With this new mural, Miró obviously in- troduced variations as regards the two UNESCO murals. He wanted at al1 costs to avoid resorting to the same ideas and to try something new. He therefore decided to throw himself into the ad- venture without a rnodel to go by. He and Artigas also decided that the pieces would be of varying size, unlike those in the previous panels. He could not forget that it was intended for an 'interior. The aggressiveness and force of the UNESCO rnurals were to be re- placed here by decorative values, in keeping with Miró's work. He also intro- duced another innovation at the moment of painting it; this time, rather than firing the pieces first, he painted on them in their raw state, without a model, as we have seen, and also without waiting for possible suggestions frorn other al- ready well-known sources. Artigas, for his part, put al1 his considerable expe- rience to work to come up with rnate- rials which, once fired, would produce a ceramic with the sarne quality as the backgrounds in Miró's 195 1 painting. Once again, the understanding be- tween the two great artists brought re- ART sults, and once again the young Joanet Gardy Artigas had an important contri- bution to rnake. The 120 pieces making up this mural were baked at a high ternperature in the Nikósthenes kiln in Gallifa. A subse- quent firing at between 850 "C and 1,950 "C was to fix the living colours against the backgrounds and blacb outlines of the initial firing: chrome red, cobalt blue, uraniurn yellow, copper green.