And then, six months after the full-scale Spanish Civil War had erupted, Miró abruptly decided to do "something absolutely different." He hadn't used models or props for many years, but now, exiled in Paris, he assembled what he called a "very realistic" still life in his studio and returned to the slow methods that Hemingway had so admired. It was as though the careful rhythms of the artisan were the proper response to the chaotic mayhem Franco was unleashing on his own people. Miró had written of his desire "to attain a maximum intensity with a minimum of means." A fork stuck into a wizened apple, an empty gin bottle, a crust of black bread—this may be a Depression vision, but it has a Wizard of Oz intensity, with the old shoe assuming the weight of life itself, irradiated with meaning. This still life has the scale and feel of a landscape. There are bright lights on the distant horizon, no doubt about it, but whether it's a better day coming or something more sinister remains uncertain.