:Naked Woman Climbing a Staircase

File:Eadweard Muybridge 1.gif's Woman Walking Downstairs in The Human Figure in Motion, 1887, work which in turn inspired Marcel Duchamp.]]

Miró created Naked Woman Climbing a Staircase during the Spanish Civil War. He was living in Paris when he started to attend life drawing classes at the school of the Grande Chaumiere. Miró returned to constructing the human figure to represent the drama that was then taking place in Catalonia. This feeling can be made out in the shapes used to draw this tortured nude woman climbing a staircase.Works by Joan Miró. Joan Miró Foundation. 1988. Ediciones Polígrafa. Other works of this period include Still Life with Old Shoe and Aidez l'Espagne.{{cite web |url=http://ocio.diariodemallorca.es/planes/noticias/nws-13103-la-tate-modern-descubre-miro-mas-politico.html | title = The Tate Modern discovers the most political Miró | access-date = 24 September 2011 | work = Diario de Mallorca | year = 2011 | language = es}}

File:Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase.jpg, 1912, by Marcel Duchamp]]

According to the Joan Miró Foundation, "Miró's despondency brought about by the moral tragedy of the war can be seen in the violent metamorphosis of the figure, in her heavy limbs and in the effort involved in climbing." At the top right is a kind of window or box where light rays can be seen entering the room. The woman is using her right arm to try to grab a ladder – this was a symbol that Miró used in several of his works to represent evasion or escape. The external genitals of the woman are similar to those of the woman in Man and Woman in Front of a Pile of Excrement as they are exaggerated in size.Clavero 2010, p.72-73 This work is said to be related to Marcel Duchamp's 1912 painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, although here the woman is ascending. The distortion and effort of the figure are interpreted as mirroring the Spanish Civil War.{{cite web|title=A New Approach To Joan Miró|page=41|publisher=Joan Miró Foundation|url=http://www.fundaciomiro-bcn.org/imgdin/spdossier/0010.pdf|access-date=5 November 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110620193045/http://fundaciomiro-bcn.org/imgdin/spdossier/0010.pdf|archive-date=20 June 2011|df=dmy-all}} Duchamp's painting was not original; it alluded to the earlier photographs by Eadweard Muybridge{{Cite book

|last= Tomkins

|first= Calvin

|author-link=Calvin Tomkins

|title=Duchamp: A Biography

|location=U.S.

|publisher=Henry Holt and Company, Inc

|year=1996

|isbn=0-8050-5789-7

}} which were amongst the first to record animal locomotion. Miró first saw this work by Duchamp in 1912, during the Cubist art exhibition held at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona.{{Cite book | title=Surrealisme a Catalunya, 1924–1936: de l'amic de les arts llogicofobisme | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KqZDAAAACAAJ | access-date=5 November 2011 | date=1 August 1988 | publisher=Polígrafa | isbn=978-84-343-0539-7 | pages=17 | language=ca}}{{Cite book | author1=Rosa Maria Malet | author2=Joan Miró | title=Joan Miró | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o7e_jwEACAAJ | access-date=5 November 2011 | year=1993 | publisher=Edicions 62 | isbn=978-84-297-3568-0 | pages=19}}

Muybridge's idea of a woman on a staircase caught the imagination of not only Duchamp and Miró but also Miró's contemporary Salvador Dalí who created a homage to Duchamp's painting. His model was also shown ascending the stairs{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rt-BCXnPokUC&q=stairs+duchamp+dali|title=Drawing on art: Duchamp and company|last=Judovitz|first=Dalia|publisher=Minnesota Press|year=2010|isbn=9780816665297|pages=147|author-link=Dalia Judovitz|access-date=5 November 2011}} like Miró's subject.

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The exhibition L'escala de l'evasió that opened in October 2011 was supported by access to Wikipedia using QRpedia codes that allowed access to visitors in Catalan, English and several other languages.[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Mir%C3%B3-L%27escala_de_l%27evasi%C3%B3._Entrada_a_l%27exposici%C3%B3-_QRpedia_codes.jpg?uselang=ca Photo at opening day of the exhibition], 15 October 2011

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |title=Fundació Joan Miró. Foundation's Guide |last=Clavero |first=Jordi.J |year=2010 |publisher=Polígrafa |location= Barcelona |isbn=978-84-343-1242-5 }}
• {{cite book|author=Joan Miró|title=Obra de Joan Miró: dibuixos, pintura, escultura, ceràmica, tèxtils|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EHNKPQAACAAJ|access-date=5 October 2011|year=1988|publisher=Fundació Joan Miró-Centre d'Estudis d'Art Contemporani}}
• Jaques Dupin – Ariane Lelong-Mainaud. Joan Miró. Catalogue raisonné. Drawings I 1901–1937, 2008. Daniel Lelong and Successió Miró

{{Joan Miró}}

Category:1937 works

Category:Spanish art

Category:Arts in Spain

Category:Paintings in Barcelona

Category:Joan Miró