Still Like with Old Shoe

Still Life with Old Shoe by celebrated Catalan artist Joan Miro, a Surrealist artist whose work has been described as the re-creation of the childlike and a sandbox for the subconscious mind, is a reflection of living in times of turmoil.

Miro’s style is a cross somewhere between a cartoon and a whimsy universe. That all together become this collection of a shadowy dream landscape inhabited by mischievous creatures.

Absorbed by both his inner life and the forces raging around him, Miro invaded the canvas. The black wisps dancing in the back look vaguely human-like and give the viewer a sense of unease, unable to identify them. The intense color certainly helps give the piece its penetrating strength, it’s what hits the eye most directly. Bringing to mind infrared used sometimes for security but mostly used in times of war.

On the table are symbols of what life was like during the war. The fork stabbed into the apple was the soldiers sticking his bayonet into the enemy’s body. The crust of bread became a symbol of hunger. The beaten and broken bottle contained a fire. The composition is real because if you stare at it long enough it scares you.

His art may be have been shaped by the times in his which he lived but his dreamlike paintings; from playful and childlike to somber and disturbing transcend history.