Untitled [plate XXII] 1958

Joan Miró made this untitled plate, number XXII, with lithographic crayon and brushstrokes of ink, dancing with a life of their own. It feels like each mark was a single breath. I can imagine Miró thinking, "Okay, blue line here, a fat green dash there," almost like a recipe, or a dance. The yellow line, so direct and sure, anchors the whole thing with that green dot, a full stop that makes me smile. Miró's playful vocabulary of signs is all over this piece. It relates to other abstract expressionists, like Motherwell or Gottlieb, who were also obsessed with inventing their own personal alphabets. I'm touched by the way artists keep each other company across time, riffing on the same universal themes with such different and beautiful flavors. In painting, there is never one answer. Instead, it's an ongoing conversation full of mystery, a testament to the endless ways of seeing and feeling.