Miro - A Toute Epreuve

A Toute Epreuve is probably one of Miro’s most beautiful and elegant Grande Livres and is the result of a remarkable collaboration between the artist Miro, the surrealist poet and Miro’s friend Paul Eluard together with publisher Gerald Cramer. Miro spent over 10 years between conception and final publication with the creation of 253 woodblocks requiring over 42,000 passes through the press to create a magnificent work of 52 folded sheets of interwoven image and text. The text in A Toute Épreuve is printed with font of varying sizes in different positions on the page with Miro’s images working with and around the print. This is clearly seen in the complex interaction of text and image in the most striking title page. The left hand image of the child like multicoloured bird under a yellow sun walking away from the textual information, Title page from A Toute Épreuve. This is contrasted with the cluttered right hand page with the poets face portrayed in a black circle and eyes with strange headgear rising above in red from the nose, and the arms and legs below each portrayed in different colours.