 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
40
VII. Topics for discussion.
1. Matisse's artistic philosophy.
2. Matisse's mature works of art.
UNIT XVIII PICASSO (1881-1973)
The long career of Pablo Ruiz у Picasso cast across the twentieth century a shadow as long as
those of Michelangelo and Titian across the sixteenth century. Picasso created one of the most
important movements of the twentieth century, participated in many others, and influenced every
phase of artistic activity throughout the world in one way or another until his extreme old age.
Throughout his entire life he showed an incredible range of ideas and styles, and even in later years
he remained a towering figure. The best works among his immense output have taken their place
among the masterpieces of twentieth-century art.
A fully trained painter at the age of nineteen, the Spanish-born Picasso took up residence in
France in 1900. He fell under the influence of Toulouse-Lautrec. Picasso became concerned with
the lives of those who lived as he did on the periphery of society. The woman in his Absinthe
Drinker, of 1902, is enveloped in self-pity and helplessness, a figure of extraordinary sculptural
simplicity and beauty. The painting is coloured by blue - the proverbial colour of melancholy -
which has given its name to this period in Picasso's evolution, lasting about four years (1901-4). For
the young painter it was a period of hopeless maladjustment to the art world of Paris.
By late 1904 Picasso's mood of depression had lightened, and so also had his palette. A brief
Rose Period (1904-6) followed, in which he was less concerned with the tragic aspects of poverty
than with the nostalgic charm of circus performers. Salimbanques, of 1905, shows a family of these
strolling players grouped together physically, but emotionally detached, before a mysterious desert
landscape. Figures and costumes, surely drawn and modelled blend with the ground and the sunny
haze in tones of softly greyed blue, rose and beige, creating mother-of-pearl effects. This is one of
the loveliest pictures of the 20-th century.
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, of 1907, heralds the beginning of Cubism. The attitude and
methods of the Cubists are not easy to explain. Cezanne had founded planes in real objects and had
used them to establish a structure of form seen by means of colour; the Cubists do the opposite,
imposing their own structure of mono-chromic planes upon the object. The composition of Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon was derived from a small bather composition by Cezanne. The intensity of
the partially decomposed figures contrasts with a still life in the foreground. Instead of Cezanne's
lovely roses, blues and greens, the figures are largely light brown, their anatomy is indicated by
uneven white or black contours. A harsh blue, as if a sudden glimpse of sky, surrounds the figure at
the upper right. The staring expressions of the central figures give way at all sides to simplified,
influenced by African sculpture, faces.
Heads, busts, still life and occasional landscapes form the subject matter of early Cubist
painting. In the Seated Woman, of 1909, the individual forms - the characteristic swelling and
distortion of the neck muscles, or the reduction of the eyes to trapezoids - are not derived from
nature. Soft tans and olive tones prevail.
By 1911, in the phase known to art historians as Analytical Cubism, the tension has burst, and
so has the object. The entire foreground is filled with its component planes, floating as if in a thick
mist. The planes are no longer opaque; one seems to see through them, and a great deal of the effect
of an Analytical Cubist picture is derived from the delicacy of the intersection of these planes. They
are rendered with a divided touch recalling that of Impressionism. These planes build up a
pyramidal structure, superseding the structure of observed reality.
Cubism rapidly became a common style. During 1912 the Cubist artists began to turn to a new
series of interests and a new kind of experience, responsible for the phase known generally as
Synthetic Cubism, since the painters no longer sought to disintegrate the object but to reassert it. In
Synthetic Cubism the barrier between reality and representation is unexpectedly broken. Now bits
of the real objects make their entrance into the picture: newspaper clippings, lengths of rope, etc.
Picasso's The Bottle of Suze, of 1913, is an epitome to this Synthetic phase. Once established, the