When I write a novel, I immerse myself in the culture of the country in which the story is set. For my new novel Indiscretion, that was a sheer delight, because I have adored Spain since I first visited the country as a young woman. Because I am a keen lover of art (one of the reasons I set my novel The Echoes of Love in Venice, home of the Italian Renaissance), this is an area of culture I research first. Happily, I was already very familiar with one of the best-known artists, Joan Miro, because he has long been an artist I admired, for these reasons.

The playfulness and vibrancy of his art

Here’s a glimpse of just some of his many artworks. I love the vivid colours, which are so symbolic of Spain; the joy that comes through; the childlike quality to the works.

The wealth of mediums used

Miro was a painter, a ceramist and a sculptor, and he excelled in each medium. His sculptures, for example, are to be found the world over, from a Parisian garden to a Chicago plaza.

He was also unafraid to try a new medium. In 1974, when he was asked to work with Catalan artist Josep Royo on a tapestry for the World Trade Center, New York, he learned the craft from scratch. (Sadly, their valuable tapestry was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks.) In his final years he was exploring the potential for sculpting from gas and creating four-dimensional paintings.

His many books

Miro documented his thinking and art so well that he has left a powerful legacy for artists who follow him. In his lifetime he created more than 250 livres d’ artiste, containing lithographs that add greatly to his body of work.

His maverick and principled approach

Miro wanted to break away from art being the domain of the bourgeois. He intended to unleash an‘assassination of painting’, using his Surrealist approach to reimagine ways to paint.

He was also a principled man. His political stance that found expression in his art forced him to live away from Spain during the civil war, and his pride in his Catalan heritage did not make life under Franco easy.

Above all, he took his art seriously. He said: “The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.”

And finally…

Here are some facts about Miro you may not know:

• His first solo show at the Dalmau Gallery, Barcelona, in 1918 was a spectacular flop, yet he kept going.
• His early work was inspired by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne.
• Ernest Hemingway bought one of his early paintings, ‘The Farm’, and described it thus, “It has in it all that you feel about Spain when you are there and all that you feel when you are away and cannot go there. No one else has been able to paint these two very opposing things.”
• Pierre Matisse, son of the artist Henry, brought Miro’s work to the US when he exhibited it in his New York City art gallery.

Miro’s works are on display all over the world, but the place to visit if you are interested in Miro is the Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona: http://www.fundaciomiro-bcn.org/fundaciojoanmiro.php?idioma=2. Even the building, designed by Josep Lluís Sert, is inspirational.