Classroom Activity

Art Starters: Joan Miró

Part of Art Tales for Pre-K

Joan Miró grew up in Spain, a country in Europe, in a region called Catalonia. As an adult, he moved far away, but every summer he returned to his family’s village to visit. Miró made this painting of his family’s farm, which he loved very much. Miró painted parts of the landscape surrounding the farm in many of his artworks.

Two angular, cream-white buildings flanking a central, stylized tree are surrounded by brown soil, small animals, and farmhouse objects like watering cans and buckets beneath a clear, azure-blue sky in this square landscape painting. We look straight onto the buildings and slightly down onto the earth in front of us. About a third of the way up the composition, the horizon is lined with trees and mountains in the deep distance. The long, spindly branches of the central tree nearly reach the top edge of the painting and abstracted, sickle-shaped leaves are silhouetted against the sky so no leaves overlap. The far edge of the whitewashed structure to our left is cropped. The façade is pierced by two small rectangular windows and an arched hatch at the top under a winch. The back end of a horse is visible through an open door at the bottom center. Horizontal bands in front of the building suggest furrows in plowed earth, and a single stalk of corn grows up into the scene, seeming close to us. A pen protected by netting stretches out in front of the second structure, to our right of center. That wood-frame building has a triangular peaked roof, and the left half is open, like a lean-to. A goat, rooster, birds, and several rabbits occupy the pen. Watering cans, buckets and pails, a hoe, newspaper, lizard, and snail are spaced around the buildings. A tiny stylized person, perhaps a baby, appears in the distance between the buildings near a well where a woman works. A covered wagon, a round mill, trees, and plants fill the rest of the space between the buildings. A disk-like moon hangs in the sky to the right of the tree. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner, "Miro. 1921-22."
Joan Miró, The Farm, 1921-1922, oil on canvas, Gift of Mary Hemingway, 1987.18.1

Grade Level

Subject

Language

Look

Look for different shapes—circles, squares, triangles.

Draw an imaginary line dividing the painting into two parts. What is on either side of your line?

List all the different animals you can find.

Do you think this is a real place or an imaginary place? Why?

Imagine you could visit this farm. Which part of it would you explore first?

What would you ask the artist about this work?

Read

A New Home (Spanish language version: Un Nuevo Hogar)
by Tania de Regil

A boy moving from New York to Mexico City and a girl moving from Mexico City to New York express their fears about leaving home to live in a new and unfamiliar place.

Miró’s Magic Animals
by Antony Penrose

Tony is a boy whose parents are artists, and Tony is fascinated by his parents' friend, Miró. Tony explores the art that Miró made, with a special interest in the animals in his paintings.

Make: Create a collage

You Will Need

  • Paper
  • Your favorite drawing supplies

Before you begin, close your eyes and imagine that you’re visiting your favorite place: the beach, the library, a relative’s house, or somewhere else that is special to you. What is it like there? What do you do there? List the things—both big and small—you might include in a drawing of this place.

When you’re ready to draw, fold the paper in half, and then in half again. Open it out flat. Notice how the creases divide the paper into four sections. As you draw, try to remember your special memories of this place. Do any new details come to mind? Put different memories of the place in each of the four sections.

Vocab Bank

  • crease
  • landscape
  • relative

Download

Art Tales: Coloring and Cut-Outs booklet (PDF, 3.5 MB)

Art Tales for Pre-K (PDF, 7.2 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte (PDF, 7.5 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte: Colorear y Recortes (PDF, 3.7 MB)

Miró on the Farm lesson plan

An Eye for Art: Joan Miró teaching resource (PDF, 9.4 MB)

Visit

Register for the Art Tales pre-K school tour

Submit Student Work

Send images of your students' projects that follow these activities - email [email protected]

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