BILBAO, SPAIN – “All I want is for my works to
lighten the heart and flood the eyes and the soul with light.” That was how
Joaquim Mir (Barcelona, 1873—1940), one of the most famous and influential
artists in Catalonian art circles in the early 20th century, summed up
his private art manifesto in 1928. Colour and light meant everything to
Mir, and he used them to build a personal idiom in which he created a
surprisingly modern oeuvre, beyond the art movements like Impressionism or
Symbolism with which critics have often sought to associate him.
Although his artistic development varied between realism and abstraction, two
features crop up throughout his entire output: the urge to establish a new
vision of nature and an unremitting search for beauty marked by genuine creative
tension.