i. m. pei in its development. seven works of art were commissioned it was agreed that a ecific pieas needed to animate the unbroken expanse of wall in the central crtyard. but the artist would have to have a capacity for monumental concepts, with a sense of color and scale appropriate to the site. a unanimous choice was spanish artist joan miro. born in the catalan city of barcelona in 1893, miro has remained close to the land and its people. but as a young man in paris, he joined with friends like max ernst and jean arp in the emerging surrealist movement of the 1920s. in his painting "the farm," miro's characteristic symbols and themes began to appear: serpenne shapes, checkeoard patterns, finitepace represented by the moon or a star. in 1922, he painted "the farmer's wife," the ancestress of countless female sbols that also became a continuing motif in miro's art. in 1924, his art broke free of gravitational constraints in theurrealc world of "harlequin's carnival." over the years, he develo