Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird

Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird is a crucial 1926 painting by the Spanish artist Joan Miró. Executed in oil on canvas, the work dates from a highly productive period Miró spent at his family farm in Montroig, confirming his move towards the revolutionary abstract and biomorphic language of Surrealism. The seemingly simple title relates to the primary subject matter: a stylized, almost pictogrammatic figure engaged in the action of hurling a stone at a bird, rendered against a highly abstracted field of color. This piece captures Miró's transition away from earlier detailed realism towards the unique, dreamlike abstraction that would define his mature career.

Created between mid-August and December 1926, this canvas belongs to a pivotal moment in Miró’s artistic development following his definitive engagement with the Surrealist movement in Paris. While the composition is reduced, the structure maintains a vibrant dialogue between line and color, typical of his Montroig output. The central figure and the avian subject are distilled into elemental shapes and symbols, rendered with a raw, energetic application of oil paint. Miró deliberately eschewed traditional perspective or modeling, focusing instead on the psychological resonance achieved through simplified form and flat color planes. The dynamic tension in the subject matter reflects the artist’s concurrent experiments with poetry and automatic drawing.

The creation of works like Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird marked the definitive structural shift in Miró’s vision, cementing his position as a pioneer of 20th-century modernism. The painting is internationally recognized for its symbolic power and innovative technique, showcasing the radical freedom the artist felt during the 1926 period. This important Spanish masterwork currently resides in the distinguished collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Although the original painting is highly conserved, the image is frequently reproduced in scholarly catalogs, and high-quality prints of the piece are widely available, often entering the public domain for critical study and general appreciation.