Catalan painter Joan Miró (1893-1983) is one of those Modernist superstars that we think we know. His much-reproduced colorful abstract canvases have come to embody the very idea of a Surrealist modernity. So what is there to learn from a blockbuster Miró exhibition like the one that opened last month at Tate Modern?

For the show's co-curator Marko Daniel, this is "a unique opportunity to challenge these assumptions [about the artist]." Miró is often thought of as a great Surrealist and yet he never joined the movement — which didn't prevent the "Pope of Surrealism" André Breton from calling him "the most surreal of us all." But Miró wasn't cut out for dogma, Surrealist or otherwise, and his pictorial style changed radically and repeatedly throughout his long career.

"Miró lived and breathed art," says Daniel, "but he also remained firmly grounded in the roots of reality." This is exemplified by the artist's relentless commitment to Spain and his will to make works that, Daniel says, "spoke out against oppression and for the power of freedom."

View Slideshow: Finding Order in Miro's Surrealist Chaos: A Tate Curator on 5 Key Paintings in the Artist's New Survey

In 1937, at the peak of the Spanish Civil War, Miró — who was then in Paris — accompanied his piece "Aidez l'Espagne" with an incendiary caption condemning fascism and celebrating the "boundless creative will" of the people. While many of his friends and fellow artists went into exile in the United States and elsewhere, he chose to go back to Spain.

Miró's decision was to have a decisive impact on Spain's art history. He was a friend and supporter of many younger artists including Antoni Tapiès and the poet Joan Brossa. "Artists who came to maturity in the '40s and '60s were greatly inspired by Miró," says Daniel.

"His work was like a punch in your face that woke you up," says gallerist Pepe Pinya, who also recalls that Miró, aged 80, used to tell him: "I have to work now. I won't be able to work when I'm old."

Below, Daniel analyzes for ARTINFO UK five key works by the modern master. (Or click the slide show at the left to see the images accompanied by his descriptions.)

"The Farm" (1921-1922)

"The Farm is one of the early masterpieces of Miró. It was painted at a farm that his parents had acquired in 1911 as a retreat from Barcelona. Miró himself was born in Barcelona, he was a city boy, but both his families originally came from Catalonia. He spent a great amount of time in this house in the Catalan countryside and it was where he discovered his artistic passion.

"Within one canvas, there are quite distinct components: the farmhouse, the stable, different fields, a huge carob tree in the middle of the picture and slightly wilder woods in the background. With this painting, Miró began to set up the universe of symbols — the owl, the snail — that he would return to throughout his life.

"Miró always talked about his affection for Catalonia. He would describe himself as 'Catalan and international.' The Catalan landscape, as shown here, is essentially one that is shaped by agriculture. In the painting, there's an intimate relationship between humans and nature, shown by the way the carob tree stretches its branches right across the canvas. Different parts of the work received very different aesthetic treatment — to the extent that his dealer, when the work first remained unsold, suggested that it could be cut up in four different pieces. Luckily, it didn't happen. It was Hemingway who acquired 'The Farm.' He left it to his wife who then donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington."

"Still Life with Old Shoe" (1937)

"Stylistically this work is overwhelming. There's nothing like it — nothing in Miró's work and, I would dare say, probably nothing in painting up to this point. The acidic hues, the shoe's neon effect, the swirls of colours with the black shapes in the background, all of this really sets up a work that has no equal. And the shadows give to the piece an ominous and terrifying atmosphere.

"Miró talked about it as a personal response to the news he was reading on a daily basis about the Spanish Civil War. In his period, he was experiencing great financial difficulties and he was often hungry. It is almost an acid trip caused by starvation that made him picture these humble foodstuffs in such an extraordinary way. The surface on which the objects of the still life sit could either be a tabletop or an infinite landscape of the kind that he and Salvador Dalí depicted around that period."

"A Star Caresses the Breast of a Negress (Painting Poem)" (1938)

"This work shows Miró as an unparalleled master of the use of black. It comes from a period in which the artist was very much engaged in combining his visual art with poetry. This is really a 'painting-poem.' The owl is a symbol that often stands for the artist himself — though it cannot simply be reduced to that — the red wiggle next to it is, of course, a 'M' for Miró and the ladder of escape is a personal symbol too. All of these are very much part of Miró's process of sublimation."

"The Escape Ladder" (1940)

"For us this work was a perfect symbol of the exhibition as a whole. The ladder makes its first appearance in 'The Farm' and then it reappears again and again. It often links the very bottom of the canvas with the upper reaches. It connects the ground with the sky, the artist's rootedness with the most ethereal imagination. It represents Miró's oscillation between immersing himself in the messiness of the real world and withdrawing periodically from it. It's a ladder that you can climb up and down: go away from reality towards the realm of imagination or return to the solid ground."

"May 68, 1968" (1973)

"Miró said that the date of this painting and its title spoke for themselves. We also know that while working on this piece, he had newspaper cuttings describing 'vandals' — as Franco's press called them — throwing paint bombs at government buildings in Madrid. The very appearance of this work is a reference not just to the student uprising in Paris but also to the beginning of a resistance to Franco within Spain. It's very clearly motivated by the revolutionary spirit of that moment. It's also very significant to see his handprints in the painting. For him, they both referred back to pre-historical cave paintings and meant 'bearing witness': they were a sign of 'having been there.'"