WE NEED THE STORYTELLERS

We were, once again, the only vis­i­tors to artist Joan Miró’s Farm at Mont-roig del Camp.

We have been to the de­cep­tively sim­ple and tra­di­tional white-washed bas­tion of sur­re­al­ism three times be­fore and there have never been more than a hand­ful of peo­ple. Like all store­rooms of sto­ries, it opens onto so many en­light­en­ments. You just need to dwell a while.

Many of his orig­i­nal works and much more are within Barcelona Parc de Mon­tjuic’s out­stand­ing Fun­dació Joan Miró., founded by the artist him­self, and also in col­lec­tions around the world.

Self­ishly, at Mont-roig del Camp, I wel­come the chance to block out the traf­fic on the A7 and mind­fully lis­ten to the echoes of such a vital space, to ap­pre­ci­ate the link to Paris in the 1920s and the lights that burned so brightly there at the gath­er­ings of the home of Amer­i­can avant-garde nov­el­ist Gertrude Stein.

It is some­thing to sense the con­nec­tions, to know Miró did such work in his stu­dio at the farm, that he and his close friend Hem­ing­way sat and talked by the fire. The Barcelona-born artist’s par­ents bought the farm when Miró was a trou­bled teenager suf­fer­ing from de­pres­sion. It was his refuge and sowed his love of – and in­spi­ra­tion from – na­ture.

As a young artist, he craved mov­ing to Paris where cre­ativ­ity seemed un­bounded. And he did so, tak­ing with him his Cata­lan iden­tity that flow­ered with this new per­spec­tive. The col­lec­tive cre­ativ­ity of the city proved over­whelm­ing. “I barely do any work here; it’s im­pos­si­ble. I feel that a new world is open­ing up in my brain.” He was be­friended by artist André Mas­son. He be­came part of Stein’s cir­cle. At her gath­er­ings at 27 Rue de Fleu­rus were other ground­break­ers such as Pi­casso, Hem­ing­way, Ma­tisse, Scott Fitzger­ald, Modigliani and Cézanne.

Hem­ing­way col­lected art. Stein told him to con­sider Miró. Miró was strug­gling to even feed him­self. He saw Miró’s paint­ing The Farm (yes, Mont-roig del Camp) and fell in love with it. Yet last week as we ap­pre­ci­ated the farm­house and all it means, five min­utes away the beach and camp­site heaved with tourists clue­less to how close to ge­nius they were.

How ful­fill­ing it would be, surely, to have mean­ing and depth on a fas­ci­nat­ing, fun­da­men­tal jour­ney to find the soul of a coun­try that so many vis­i­tors pro­fess to know?

So much is being done, so suc­cess­fully, to pre­serve and ed­u­cate, from world renowned ar­chi­tec­ture, art, music and lit­er­a­ture. But shouldn’t more be done to join up all of the smaller dots? I would love to know some­one was at­tempt­ing to.

Talks in ho­tels, guided tours to as­ton­ish­ing places that peo­ple would have never con­sid­ered vis­it­ing... from pre­his­tory, to con­tem­po­rary arts. En­thus­ing, en­gag­ing, ed­u­cat­ing, rather than ex­pect­ing peo­ple to re­search or even pick up a leaflet. The farm on its own means lit­tle un­less you know the artist and his com­pelling life.

There are so many Cata­lan sto­ries to tell. And every­one loves a good story.