A Playful Portrait’s Regional Spirit

IT LOOKS LIKE a noodly creature from deep under the sea.

- MAX NORMAN

On a straw-yellow background, scattered with a few gray freckles in the top left and bottom right corners, two lines form a pencil-thin cross; on each end of the horizontal stroke are black dots with three red lines shooting out of them like eyelashes at half-mast. At the top is something that resembles a drooping bell pepper, partially shaded in cardinal red; at the bottom a brace of thicker crimson squiggles dangle like the tentacles of a jellyfish. In the top right corner hangs a funky five-pointed star, shaded in blue, beneath blue, yellow and red arcs.

The painting, in oil and crayon and measuring roughly 5 feet by 4 feet, is unmistakably by Joan Miró.

Titled "Head of a Catalan Peasant," it's the first of four "Head" canvases made in 1924 and 1925, right as the Spanish painter developed the capricious style for which he became famous. The title (unusually, Miro's own) brings the painting into focus: The cross forms a face; the two black dots, eyes; the squiggles beneath, a beard. Atop the head sits a barretina typical of Miro's native Catalonia.