And the prize for the best title goes to... Joan Miró

This is one of my favourite Joan Miró lithographs, mostly because of the strength of the image with its vivid colour and lively composition, but also because of its hilarious title. It was created in 1952 in atelier Mourlot for the art revue Verve, published by Tériade. The double issue in which it appeared (no. 27-28) is one of the most sought-after issues of this legendary publication, as it contains not just this astonishing work by Miró but also Chagall's Visions de Paris (8 lithographs), Matisse's La tristesse du roi, Léger's La partie de campagne, and additional lithographs by Braque, Henri Laurens, Alberto Giacometti, André Masson, Francisco Borès, and Marcel Gromaire.

Joan Miró, The Dog Barking at the Moon

Lithograph, 1952

The full title of the Miró is lithographed in Miró's hand on the reverse of the print: Le chien aboyant à la lune reveille le coq le chant du coq picote le crane du fermier Catalan posé sur la table à coté du pourron. The dog barking at the moon wakes the cock, the song of the cock pecks at the head of the Catalan farmer resting on the table by the flask of wine.

Joan Miró, Le chien aboyant à la lune (title)

Lithograph, 1952

Like the other double page lithographs in this edition of Verve, The Dog Barking at the Moon has a central vertical fold, and tiny, barely-visible, threadholes where it was bound into the revue. And like almost all Verve lithos, there are additional lithographs on the reverse - in this case the title, and what seems like a preparatory sketch for the main composition.

Joan Miró, Preparatory study for The Dog Barking at the Moon

Lithograph, 1952

Below are a few more choice images from this wonderful edition of Verve, none of which comes close to the Miró for Monty Python-esque lunacy of concept or title.

Marc Chagall, Vision of Paris

Lithograph, 1952

Marc Chagall, Place de la Concorde

Lithograph, 1952

Henri Matisse, La tristesse du roi

Lithograph, 1952

Georges Braque, Untitled (Birds)

Lithograph, 1952

Henri Laurens, Daphne

Lithograph, 1952

Alberto Giacometti, L'arbre

Lithograph, 1952

André Masson, Le torrent

Lithograph, 1952

Francisco Borès, La femme en bleu

Lithograph, 1952

Marcel Gromaire, Intérieur flamand

Lithograph, 1952

Fernand Léger, La partie de campagne

Lithograph, 1952

Cubist pochoirs

"Everything in nature takes its form from the sphere, the cone, and the cylinder," wrote Paul Cézanne. It was the major Cézanne retrospective in Paris in 1907, together with Picasso's discovery of African and Oceanic art around the same time, that gave rise to the Cubist movement which propelled art into the twentieth century and the machine age. Picasso's famous 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon shows Cubism in its earliest formative stage; its fractured perspectives derive, I believe, from Picasso's memories of the endless reflections he had glimpsed in the heavily mirrored brothels of the barrio chino in Barcelona, where the painting is set. In 1907 and 1908 Picasso, in close collaboration and friendly rivalry with Georges Braque, worked out the template for Cubism, an art in which the single perspective of a static onlooker is replaced by the multiple perspective of an all-seeing eye.

Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians

Pochoir after a painting

from Eugenio d'Ors Pablo Picasso 1930

Georges Braque, La Bouteille de Marc

Pochoir after a collage

from XXe Siècle, 1956

While Picasso and Braque were generous and open in sharing their discoveries with fellow artists, they were in no hurry to exhibit this ground-breaking work, and the first the general public knew of this radical new art was the Cubist room at the Salon des Indépendants in spring 1911, which showed work not by Cubism's originators but by their followers, who called themselves the Section d'Or. This same group staged an exhibition the following year at the Galerie La Boetie in Paris, to mark the publication of Du Cubisme by two of the members, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. America's introduction to Cubism came through a series of drypoints by Jacques Villon (who gave the Section d'Or its name), exhibited at the Armory Show in New York in 1913.

Henri Laurens, Nature Morte

Pochoir after a painting

from XXe Siècle, 1956

I've just acquired a copy of Guillaume Janneau's 1929 study L'Art Cubiste, which was enhanced by 12 pochoir (hand-stencilled) plates. The tricky task of cutting the stencils and hand-applying the gouache colour was entrusted to one of the masters of pochoir, Daniel Jacomet. I only have 11 of these plates (one by Léger is missing), but here they are, to give an overview of the movement, and the individual approaches developed by the various artists who followed in the wake of Braque and Picasso.

Georges Braque

Pochoir after a painting

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Pablo Picasso

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Albert Gleizes

Pochoir after a gouache

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Auguste Herbin

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Louis Marcoussis

Pochoir after a painting

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Georges Valmier

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Henri Laurens

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

André Lhote

Pochoir after a gouache

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Pablo Picasso

Pochoir after a painting

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Juan Gris

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Fernand Léger

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929