Joan Miró Head of a Catalan Peasant

Two thin, black, straight lines create a cross above a band of widely spaced, vertical, wavy lines, all against a golden yellow background in this abstract, vertical painting. The cross and the band of wavy lines at its base nearly fill this canvas. Each end of the horizontal line of the cross ends with a black disk. Three crimson-red lines emanate like rays from the sides of each disk. The top of the vertical line of the cross ends with a scarlet-red form that flares into a straight line across the bottom and curves up and over, to our left. That shape is outlined in red and partially filled in with the same color at the curving end. At the bottom of the cross, seven vertical wavy lines are spaced along a horizontal line, all in maroon red. A turquoise-blue star floats over the black disk to our right, and three curved lines in blue, yellow, and red arch in a short, stylized rainbow near the upper right of the painting. The background is mottled with tan and ochre yellow, and speckled with topaz-blue dots mostly in the upper left and the lower right corners. The artist signed and dated the work in tiny letters near the lower right: “Miró 1924.”