Harlequin's Carnival (1 Viewer)

[Ells2]

Hey

I'm new to the site (don't really understand it much)

Anyway, im a Dance student, preparing to take my final exams before I leave school. As part of my Practical Exam I must make up a dance based on the artwork Harlequin's Carnival by Joan Miro. I am currently in the research process, during which i must gather different interpretations of the painting and was hoping people may post their comments.

Thanks

 

[luscious-llama]

Well Miro's Harlequins Carnival is primary based in Yellow, Blue and Red colours (so this goes well for costuming)

Okay, i can state a number of things but i'll come back to those and just tell you this.
In HSC 2005, a dance student make up a dance using his body, another dancers body, a giant piece of canvas/material and paint! andpainted using that, interpreting..something (had a vague concept)...

Thats one suggestion I can make about ur dance concept.

The nature of this painting by Miro is busy, hurried, and has about 50 eyepopping things going on at one time. However it is organised chaos, touching on surrealist and aburdist styles. In the middle are 2 snake like figures of black and white (yin and yang) making a cross pattern that may suggest elements of christianity and/or opposition. This same concept of opposition is shown through various forms within the painting like the orb that is half blue and red. Figures and forms that are unrecognisable are integrated with the recognisable

Oh god i'll complete this later, its way too late and I cant think!

 

[Ells2]

Thankyou so much that was so helpfull, would love to here anymore you have to offer me and any other interpretations from anyone else.

Thanks Again

 

[Porcia]

without looking at the artwork; i can only offer this: that the harlequin represents the mute, dumb stoic figure in society, and very much the underdog... but then again thats from picasso's harlequin; so later ill look at the artwork and give u my interpretation!

 

[Porcia]

hey this is what i wrote in my essay;

It seems that he used his themes almost symbolically, extending out from his image and into his life, and this is particularly shown in The Death of Harlequin where, using the convention of commedia del arte, he shows his iconoclastic streak and as in antithesis to comedy, Picasso portrays the Harlequin figure as dumb and stoic. Therefore this theme of alienation may represent Picasso’s dissatisfaction with his female counterpart where the Harlequin’s Family shows the estranged harlequin holding the baby looking at his nude wife as she looks into the mirror admiring her cold beauty.

Apollinaire, an art critic wrote in his article, contemporaneous to this painting, “the Harlequins attend on the women in their glory and resemble them, being neither males nor females”. He saw the shift from the tragic-comic figure of the Harlequin as Picasso’s alter ego to the ‘fatal female’ theme which was also explored by Munch.

The artwork has a predominant red/white diffraction in the middle, which could possibly refer to the bipartite underworld/overworld dichotomy, of the binarism of the world-at-large (very vague here), but this is occluded by the objects on the surface which appear in dislocation and an ambivalent cohesion - thus symbolising both the cacaphonious and extravagant world of the entertainer. However there is one object that appears to utilize the background and bring it within the foregound - that is the window on the upper right - which suggests a hidden and sinister undertone and or another world. Also of significance is the title; "Harlequin's Carnival", where nowhere is the Harlequin itself as a whole appears in the artwork, but rather his associations and fragments which have importance in his life. Colour is used bleakly here, with garish moribund hues, often hinting at a decaying matter; perhaps Miro is suggesting that the Harlequin is but a fragment; a netherworld of the Circus.

 

[luscious-llama]

Porcia dude, you make me feel stupid, nice writings!