Families

In many villages of the Pyrenees everything is possible during the night when they celebrate the Festes del Foc, or Festivals of Fire. This ancestral tradition brings all the families and neighbours together on the night of Sant Joan to watch the magical light of the bonfires, the falles, the haros and the brandons.
 

The fire of Les Falles del Pirineu (or Torches of the Pyrenees) is burnt to coincide with the summer solstice as a symbol of renewal and life. The fire-bearers carry it down from the mountains using the Falles (or wooden torches) which they have prepared themselves. Thus, like a snake of light that descends the mountain, the fire of Sant Joan reaches the town square and the bonfire is lit around which the town dances all night.
 

The celebration is particular to each locality, and the fact is that there are up to sixty-three villages between Catalonia, Aragon, Andorra and the South of France that share in this age-old tradition. All of these have been on UNESCO's List of Intangible Heritage since 2015.

A white house beneath an intense blue sky, the chicken coop in the background, farm tools, vegetation and life all around. This is how Joan Miró portrays Mas Miró in oil, the place where he made the decision to devote his life fully to painting.

 

Although the painter was born in Barcelona and died in Palma, he spent long periods in the family home, located on the outskirts of Mont-roig del Camp. It is here that he allowed himself to be captivated by rural life and established his bond with the Catalan countryside, which would forever mark the character of the artist and, in turn, his work as a painter.
 

Mas Miró comprises the set of satellite buildings around a farmhouse in the colonial-style, built at different times between the 18th and 20th centuries. The visit to the complex, listed as a Cultural Asset of National Interest, allows you to enter the artist's studio, discover his sketches and materials, tour the garden in which the chicken coop, the chapel, the agricultural land and the farmyard are preserved.
 

A walk through this environment – taking advantage, if you wish, of the activities offered by the Mas Miró Foundation - is the ideal experience in which to discover the cradle of the symbolic style that today we all recognize as belonging to Miró and which made him into one of the most important painters of the 20th century.