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Joan Miro (1893-1983) – Règne végétal (Plant Kingdom)
Aquatint with carborundum from 1981.
The edition of 64/75 on Arches paper.
Dimensions of work: 74.3 x 57.7 cm.
Hand signed.
Publisher: Maeght Éditeur, Paris.
Reference: Dupin 462.
The work is in Good condition.
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Joan Miró’s Règne végétal (1981) is a vivid exploration of the organic forces that animate the natural world, interpreted through the artist’s unmistakable symbolic vocabulary. Rather than illustrating plants in a literal or botanical way, Miró evokes the energy of vegetation: growth, movement, germination, and the rhythmic expansion of living forms. The composition pulses with the sense of a world in constant transformation—a “vegetal realm” imagined not through representation, but through abstraction.
The aquatint with carborundum technique plays a central role in this effect. Carborundum allows for deep, granular textures and dense fields of colour, giving the work a tactile, almost earthy presence. These rich surfaces contrast with Miró’s sharp lines and floating shapes, creating an interplay reminiscent of seeds, stems, and organic structures emerging from fertile ground. The technique perfectly supports the theme: the carborundum textures become the soil in which Miró’s forms seem to grow.
This impression belongs to the numbered edition of 75, printed on Arches paper and published by Maeght Éditeur, Paris, a long-standing collaborator in Miró’s printmaking. Measuring 74.3 × 57.7 cm, the work is hand-signed and catalogued as Dupin 462, placing it firmly within the later period of the artist’s graphic oeuvre, when his imagery became increasingly distilled yet intensely expressive.
The example here is in good condition, preserving the richness of the carborundum textures and the vibrancy of Miró’s colour fields. Règne végétal reveals how the artist could take something as familiar as the natural world and reinvent it entirely through his poetic, abstract language. It is less a depiction of plants than a celebration of the vital forces that underlie all living things—a universe where forms seem to sprout, bloom, and expand with an inner life of their own.
