Miro's art has been seen as innocent and child-like, but one should dubt the innocence, or see the child in quite brutal Freudian terms. This study of the crucial formative period of Miro's art--from 1917 to 1934, from his first emergence in the avantgarde of Barcelona and Paris to his acclaim by the Surrealists and the generality of critics as a modern master--concentrates on the sometimes painful, sometimes ecstatic processes of his early development, working either in Paris or in seclusion at his farm in Montroig in Catalonia. Almost as ascetic as Mondrian, Miro drew deep on his own inner life in perfecting his imagery, which was both controlled and spontaneous, both calculated and free, both painting and "anti-painting.' this book charts to a greater degree than any others earlier the aggressiona dn determination that Miro brought to his search for genuine expression, avoiding the "poison," as he put it, of "art," which would have turned his works into "rotting corpses."

Arriving in Paris in 1920, some years the junior of the likes of Picasso and Matisse, Miro had a great deal to catch up on, and his zigzagcourses between the poles of abstraction and surrealism, his handling of cubism (from which he learned a great deal, though he set out "to smash [the Cubists'] guitar"), his response to dadism and the fermenting movements of the time, required a pugilistic determination as well as skill and artistic integrity. Indeed, his aggression was turned more frequently on his own production than on others', and it is his continuing refusal to be satisfied that marks him out as a true innovator. He was well versed in critical theory, and his correspondence with intellectuals such as Andre Breton, Georges Bataille, and Michel Leiris throws fascinating light both on his work and on the pulse of the period.

This book is the English-language edition of an exhibition only at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, March-June 2004. Memorable exhibitions at the Grand Palais in 1974 and in Barcelona and New York in 1993 sought to embrace the entirety of an oeuvre that developed across more than sixty ears, but the intention here is to scrutinize and document the most important years of Miro's art, his self-questioning formation and his first and finest masterpieces. Essays on Miro and the period by William Jeffett, Rosalind E. Krauss, Remi Labrusse, Robert Lubar, and Isabelle Monod-Fontaine are accompanied by a richly documented and illustrated Chronology and more than 200 color plates.