OCCASIONALLY in the life of a man or a woman there is a moment that changes everything, and from which there is no turning back. In the life of Joan Miro, the Spanish artist who helped transform the use of symbolism and colour in paintings, one such moment came when he was 73, and visiting Japan for the first time.
The journey, in 1966, altered his entire understanding of art; what it is, and what it could be.
'There was an immediate change in his work after that visit. In fact, you could say that all of Miro's last years were entirely dominated by the influence of Oriental art,' said Pablo Rico, curator of the exhibition Miro - Spirit of the Orient on show at the Museum of Art this month.
Miro had always been interested in Orientalism, even from the first time he came across Japanese and Chinese art forms when he was in Paris in 1920, at the age of 27.
'But it was going to Japan, visiting the temples, talking to the artists and the ordinary people; it suddenly put it in a natural perspective for him, and he found a spirituality and simplicity there,' said Mr Rico, who is the director of the Pilar and Joan Miro Foundation in Mallorca, which owns a substantial proportion of the artist's work.
Miro talked to Japanese ceramicists in a small village, and he found himself more moved during visits to Buddhist temples than he had ever been in Europe's grand cathedrals or Romanesque churches, Mr Rico said.
During that trip Miro also formed a friendship with Shuzo Takiguchi, a leading Japanese critic and poet who was one of the first Japanese intellectuals to promote surrealist expression in Japan.