JOAN MIRÓ

A very spare and simple treatment makes this setting of the artist’s family farm in his Spanish home village appear mysterious and imaginary.

Miró’s preparatory sketch for this work had an extra dimension of quirkiness: the dog’s “bow wow” written out in words rising upward, and the moon replying “You know, I don’t give a damn” in a cartoon-style text balloon. He subsequently crossed the words out in the drawing and then excluded them from this painting.