.Maeght Foundation - The Miró Labyrinth

Aimé Maeght offers Miró the dimension necessary for the excess of his universe and suggests that he invest in the gardens of the Foundation. Miró, enthusiastic, threw himself into this project.

With the ceramist Josep Llorens Artigas, his childhood friend in Barcelona, ​​Miró reinvents monumental sculpture. She is associated with architecture and nature, an infinite source of her inspiration. For the Labyrinth, he will create a dreamlike world populated by fantastic animals from his own mythology. The Catalan genius explores all materials: The ceramic Lizard climbs the walls of the patio.

The Wall has 468 ceramic plaques. A tower rises in which three ceramic plaques are embedded, a bird, a wrought iron sculpture, is perched at its top. The Lunar Bird and the Solar Bird are made of Carrara marble, the Fork is made of iron and bronze, it takes up the symbol of the raised fist of the peasant in revolt during the Spanish War.

The stone walls wind through the pine forest. The ceramic gargoyles spit water from the pools, the bottoms of which come alive with Miró's creations. All the senses are alert. The scent emitted by the immortelles, the cicadas and their song, the sun hitting Miró's sculptures.

The Grand Arch is made of concrete and it was with a jackhammer that Miró engraved his recurring signs. Further on, the most important ceramic of Miró, the Goddess of Fertility . The Sundial, made of ceramic, brings color. La Fourche dominates the hills of the Côte d'Azur, all the way to the sea. The Mammoth Egg is reflected on the water .

A few steps further down, a white marble sculpture, The Woman with Undone Hair, stands on a rock in the center of a pool. The brick wall of the main building which houses the town hall room is the vertical support of the Character , a brown ceramic face, perched on a high iron support, a figure without body or arms, it overlooks the Solar Bird and the Lunar bird.

A few more steps and a final pool and its three gargoyles. Ariadne's Thread, a white line painted by Miró on the walls of the labyrinth, takes the visitor on an endless walk and daydream.

Excerpt from La Saga Maeght: The rooms [of our new house] are organized around a patio. The living room, where a grand concert piano sits, overlooks the Foundation site and its large bay is like a cinema screen where we, privileged spectators, witness the construction of this masterpiece that is the labyrinth of Miro. The patio door, which provides access to the Foundation, is always closed so, with my sisters, we escape from the house by playing tightrope walkers on the wall surrounding the labyrinth. And here we are in this dream place. What could be better for children than a construction site like this? Miró's sculptures stir our magical imagination; The Fork becomes the prow of our ship which sails on the mist of the nearby sea, the horns of the Minotaur dominate our kingdom, the Great Arc is the entrance to our fortified castle, the Gargoyles are its guardians, as for The Mammoth egg, which earned me bursts of laughter when, at school, I dared to say that certain mammals lay eggs, it symbolizes, for us, a spaceship arriving from another galaxy.