Learning from childhood

Josep Massot’s recent biography of Joan Miró is entitled El nen que parlava amb els arbres (The boy who spoke to the trees). A friend of Miró, the American artist Alexander Calder also looked back to childhood when building his miniature circus. While visiting friends, he’d set up his little circus in their house and say: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the Calder circus.’ At the same time, Joaquín Torres-García found success with his art-toys or transformable sculptures, after he’d begun making sculpture by building wooden toys for his children. All of them understood childhood as a source of learning.