Nude with a Mirror

This is an unusual composition from Miro - a nude portrait with flattened perspective and a detailed, beautiful carpet. It immediately feels cubist, a style with which this artist spent considerable time in the earlier parts of his career.

This painting was created in 1919, just after the end of WWI. Miro was young and passionate at this period of his career, embracing a number of different styles as he attempted to understand himself and to decide what type of artist he was to become. He already possessed considerable technical ability, and was more looking to find a style with which he was most comfortable. He was knowledgeable on the history of art, having studied different names going back to the Renaissance, but wanted to contribute something fresh and original with his own work. He famously declared war on traditional art, but this forgets how many paintings were actually directly inspired by works from great masters, particularly after his trip to the Netherlands.

Miro produced a large amount of cubist work in his early years, as well as impressionism and modernism. We therefore see similarities with the likes of Braque and Gris at this stage, but whilst they continued within this movement for most of their careers, our famous Catalan was just starting to investigate and experiment with different ideas - he was still a long way from finding and developing his own signature style. The interesting features of this painting would be how Miro flattens the perspective of the chair on which the nude sits. There is a beautiful, embroidered design on its top, of butterflies, which you would not be able to appreciate as much if the normal rules of perspective had been followed. Behind the model are several curtains and a bright coloured wall. This is all a long way from where his career would later head - both in terms of content and also in style.