We see ourselves confronted with pure abstraction. Small problems and highly obscure subjects are, if you will, always grand in intention, and the la… - Joan Miró

Down with the Mediterranean!

I was very interested in the reproductions of your [ Calder's ] sculptures. I have looked at them many times [Calder sent him], and they are something completely unexpected. You are taking a path full of great possibilities. Bravo! Sculpture is of enormous interest to me right now. For the last two years [1944-46], during summer vacation, that's all I have been doing and it's very good for a painter to get away from the old story of canvas and frame every now and again.

[the canvas..] rubbing in with a handful of straw, with a rag, a scrubbing brush, a Majorcan brush for applying white, with the hand, etc.. .. [a drawing in a] gigantic rhythm like that of a waterfall cascading down a mountainside.. ..[works based on] pure signs begun in Varensgeville and finished in Palma.. ..[with a picture ground of] blue vitriol [a pesticide] that they use for the vines and that splashes against the walls of the farmhouse.. [Miro describes his 'attacks' on the canvas].