Let’s Party!

Have you ever enjoyed a carnival? A carnival is a kind of festival. People celebrate carnival by disguising themselves as funny characters. Interestingly, “carnival” is originally a Christian event. Catholic Christians traditionally marked an event called Lent. During Lent, Catholics do not eat rich foods and they don’t hold any parties. So they held a big party before Lent with their neighbors. This party was called “carnival.” Now there are many forms of carnival. Joan Miro, a famous Spanish artist, depicted the joyfulness of carnival in this painting. The painting is titled Harlequin’s Carnival 할로퀸스 카니발 and it was painted in 1925. How did he express the idea of a carnival? You can find various interesting characters all over the painting. However, it is not that easy to figure out what they are. On the left side, there is a ladder. The ladder means escape or elevation. On top of the ladder, there are two human shapes. They look like they are swaying to music. Next to the ladder, you can find a man with two colored faces, red and blue. He is disguised as a guitar. There is an insect with yellow and blue wings inside a dice. You can see a tall yellow masked man in the center. Look at the table on the right. There is a dark sphere that represents a globe, and fish. Oh, two cats are playing with string under the table. You can see the sun and a black triangle through the window. The triangle represents the Eiffel Tower. The musical notes next to the window add to the festive mood of the painting. Miro painted objects in an interesting and strange way, and this way is called Surrealism. The interesting characters make us feel the joy of a carnival. Doesn’t it feel like we are in the middle of a carnival?