but as a young man in paris, he joined th 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: serpentine shapes, checkerboard patterns, infinite sce represented by the moon or a star. in 1922, he painted "the farmer's wife," the ancestress of countless female symbols that also became a continuing motif in miro's art. in 1924, his art broke free of gravitational constraints in theurrealistic world of "harlequin's carnival." over the years, he developed his own personal symbolism, and in the 1950s, the scale of hisrt grew with such works as a mural at harrd university and "the wall ofhe sun" for unesco in pas. as his work grew in size, miro continued what he termed "a process of simplification." he stated, "little by little, i have managed to reach a point at which i use no more than a small number of forms and colors this process found a culminating expression in his eightoot-high painting "femme," the maquette for the tial gallery's tapestry. miro entered the project wi