Selene writes:
Picasso was born in Malaga Spain in 1881. At the early age of 4 he moved with his fatherto Barcelona where his father had been appointed to the faculty at the Barcelona Academy.Picasso took very early instruction from his father and then was accepted into the Academy at an early age too, where others may have waited years for entrance. It became apparent to his father and the Academy that he had astounding talent. At this time his father gave him his paints and brushes and said he himself would never paint again. Picasso at 15 mastered the conventions of the Academy as seen primarily in Girl With Barefeet. Other examples of his early talent are seen in the slides from age 11-16.
In 1900 at the age of 19 he moved to Paris. At this time he was very involved in the café society of intellectuals, musicians, actors, authors, artists. He was influenced by Toulous Lautrec when he finished the pastel Entrance To The Bullring. This was a period that his color pallette was very brilliant....maybe not to be repeated in the following decades.
During 1904-07 were his Blue and Rose Periods. The Blue Period shows his own melancholy and despair. He had to move back to Spain because of poverty and lonliness. Some say he was too poor to buy other colors and some say he painted at night. No one really knows. Picasso as an artist never put anything down on paper about his works, or for that matter probably not about anyone else’s.La Vie is perhaps his most famous from the Blue Period painted in l905.
The Rose Period followed when he returned too Paris to live in l904, permanently. He was again influenced by the circus world and Toulous Lautrec. The colors are more lively and the subject matter somewhat happy. This might show his personal and professional success. The Harem 1906 describes this period in his life.The Family of Saltimbanques is again his fascination with other "entertainer" of the public and his connection with their emotional and financial sacrifices, painted in l905.
In l907 he met Georges Braque and the Movement of Modern Art is born for many decades.He and George lived in each others houses and wore each others clothes just to stay stimulated and amused. George was particularly influenced by Cezanne and his larger blocks of color, but in essence they both were smitten with what could be called Cezanne early cubism.Their alliance was monumental in setting the direction of Modern Art and informing the 20th century art world for the next 60 years.Picasso already was working on Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Museum of Modern Art NYC), painted at the age of 26, when he met Braque. It is one of his largest....8 ft by 7.8 ft.
For decades artist had been trying to move away from naturalistic and detailed paintings inspired by classical studies from earlier centuries. He and George devised that one could see a subject from all angles at one time.Picasso said, "I paint objects/subjects as I think them, not as I see them." Cubism totally discarded the principles governing Western Art since the Renaissance.Picasso’s second most famous painting is Guernica painted in Paris in l939 and also very large.It measures 11 ft by 29 ft, and hangs in the Prado in Madrid. The experience of the Nazi bombing of Guernica had a profound effect on Picasso’s personally and artistically for many, many years. He was asked to paint something for the 1937 World Fair in Paris by the exiled Spanish Republican government.
He painted it in 39 days and it hung in the front of the SpanishPavilion. It was painted when he was 58.Face Studies is a series from the Diego Velazquez painting Las Meninas 1656. These studies are all from 1957 when he was 76 years old. They depict to me, his voracious creativity, curiosity,intensity, and unrelenting pursuit of subject matter from different angles. Here shown also is his finished version of Las Meninas. The last one was in this show of slides was painted when he was 88 years old. Apparently he did not slow down one single time in his career. He created fully and ceaselessly from the beginning of his life to the very end, death coming at age 92. This piece is titled Man, Sword, and Flowers, l969.As he grew older it became harder to separate his works into categories. His produced so much volume the lines just blurred between clay, paint, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, collage, etc etc. When he was 89 he finished 350 drawings in one year and 150 oil paintings.
An enormous career of characters, conversations, creativity, women, imagination, annoyance, viewing, sketching, living. No one quite like him since.
5 comments:
I never really cared for Guernica, or Picasso for that matter, before I went to Europe. I saw Guernica in art history books, and it just wasn't very compelling--I just couldn't relate to the grays and blacks and whites.
But I went to Madrid and saw Guernica (I actually think the museum it's in is the Reina Sofia). It's in this huge room on one wall, and it's just so incredible. I feel like the messages conveyed in the painting would not be as effective if it were done in color. When color was taken away, and all that I as the viewer was given was tones and shapes, then I was able to look deeper, and to notice different things. I'm very drawn to the scene of the mother and the dead child on the far right of the painting...you don't really notice it when just looking at the painting in a book, but in person, I couldn't stop looking at it.
And I think that the size contributed to the feelings and compelling nature as well. It's all in your face, larger than life-size.
What do people think about this? What types of observations can we make about art, in our case large-scale painting, when we don't see it in person? Does it change the meaning when it is put into print or onto a screen?
I think Alyson makes a really good point about the lack of color in Guernica -- Monet used color to express emotional yet the lack of color in this work helps to evoke intense emotion -- a bleakness about the situation and devastation of war -- I also think that Picasso's distortion of the figures appeals to our emotional sense -- especially the mother and child -- she doesn’t look like a realistic woman but her rendering expressed her pain in way that is much more striking -- this is one of my all time favorite paintings because of the intense emotion conveyed and the activist nature of the piece -- i think that is what art is all about and why artist's are so important-- commenting about society -- giving voice to the oppressed and i think the large scale of this painting only helps to convey this
I think Alyson and Rachel have made good observations about the importance of seeing paintings in person (especially when scale is significant). We really don't get the intended or true impression of the work unless we can see it in person - a fact that makes me especially excited for NYC.
Alyson saying she hadn't appreciated Guinerca also made me think about the effect society has on our tastes and preferences. I think people are often (subconciously)influenced by the preferences of others. For example, when critics and the status quo praise an artist, I think we have a natural tendency to like the work too. Picasso is so well known that our impressions of his talent are influenced before we even see his work. Tastes are individual and it is important that our first impressions should (as much as possible) be OUR impressions and not those of others. I would much prefer to first view a painting with no prior knowledge of the work or meaning behind it (as we do in our critiques). I hope that makes sense. Food for thought as we get ready to see a lot of art this coming weekend.
Similar to alyson, I was able to see Guernica in Madrid when i was abroad for the summer and see some of his other works at his museum in barcelona. I had seen it in history books and art magazines, but seeing it in person makes all of the difference. As we have discussed before, it is important to remember the context in which this painting was done. At the time, no one was painting quite like Picasso. His technique was new and different, and it wasn't that he couldn't paint in the old styles (he mastered them at a young age), it is just that he saw things in a new way. He also painted not just shapes and abtractions, but feelings and ideas.
Picasso's paintings are examples of utilization of canvas and space. His paintings are truly paintings that require a large canvas and are not just small pictures blown up. I enjoyed looking at his work, because, you are able to see the technique up close and the great deal of care picasso took in his work.
Professor Barnard suggested to consider the difference between talking, discussing, reflecting verbally on art and/or artists.....Rothko did not really want to be very verbal about his art and neither did Picasso. One time an art critic hounded him for months to write out something that would give more insight into his “meaning” for his art, viewed by the public in this instance.
He did not do this for months and months and acted very annoyed about it. His secretary, I think his named is spelled Sabartes, coaxed him to complete the request. He gave an envelope to Sabartes to give to the art critic. In the envelope were pages for primitive childlike drawings of all the letters in the alphabet....randoming all over the pages. With it was a note in which he said something like, here you are, do/write what you want with the letters. Selene
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