Picasso: From Harlequin to Minotaur to Eternity

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His life was one continuous revolution of artistic experimentation and expression.




Having developed one art form to the point of germinating a school of its own artists, he would move on to discover another direction for his artistic genius. His art encompassed not only painting, but sculpting, printmaking and ceramics. He was also a poet, playwright and stage designer. Along with Matisse and Duchamp, he innovated in developing the “plastic arts” (the three–dimensional modeling of art objects; in resins, metals, concrete, stone or wood). In the twentieth century, the name that came to be most synonymous with “artist” was Picasso.


Picasso began his life as an artist under the tutelage of his father, who was a painter and a curator of a local museum. The young Pablo began drawing as a child, as soon as could grasp a pencil. As a boy, he was a terrible student, unable to concentrate on anything but his art. He is said to have flunked math because the number “7” looked too disturbingly like an upside down nose, and so he refused to “draw” it any of his equations. By the age of 14, he was creating paintings on the level of a grand master.


Picasso’s incessantly evolving styles of painting are usually categorized, beginning with his Blue Period (1901—04), in which he painted in shades of melancholic blue. The subjects were usually emaciated poor people, reflecting the starving artist Picasso’s life as he moved between Barcelona and Paris. “The Old Guitarist” is a representative piece from this period. Things looked up enough for Pablo to have a cheerier Rose Period (1904—06), featuring brighter colors and harlequins and circus acrobats as subjects. His happiness in acquiring a mistress, bohemian artist Fernande Olivier, often a subject of his “Rose” paintings, obviously inspired his lighter mood.







The Obsession


An obsession with African art took shape as Picasso’s African Period (1907—09), during which he produced one of his most famous paintings, “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” (“The Young Ladies of Avignon”). This painting was in its unique style the bridge to his Picasso’s next, most famous, revolution in art: Cubism. Picasso’s cubist art evolution is divided into his Analytic Cubism Period (1909-12) and his Synthetic Cubism Period (1912—19). Cubism deconstructed the subject matter of Picasso’s art down to its basic shapes, and then reconstructed the subject as a more pure expression of that subject.





The War


World War I separated Picasso from his French artist comrades. They enlisted to fight, while Picasso returned to Spain to continue painting. He became involved with Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet troupe, marrying one of the ballerinas. He also began a close relationship with art dealer Paul Rosenberg, who introduced Picasso into the world of high society.


In the 1920s, between the two world wars, Picasso came to be influenced by Andre Breton’s surrealist movement in writing, poetry and other art forms. Picasso’s former interest in primitivism and eroticism was revived by his new experimentations in surrealism. His harlequin imagery as his self—identifier was replaced by the lusty minotaur, a favorite surrealist symbol.


In 1937, the opening salvos of World War II brought forth from Picasso what may be his most famous painting: Guernica. The enormous canvas depicts the horror of the German terror–bombing of that Spanish city at the behest of the Spanish fascist government during the Spanish Civil War. The bombing run served as a rehearsal for the Nazi “blitzkrieg” that would soon sweep across Europe. Picasso spent World War II in Nazi–occupied Paris, being constantly harassed by the Gestapo. He produced more poetry than paintings during these years, being banned from displaying his art.


Picasso’s post–WWII years were marked by his constant experimentation with new ideas for producing art. In the celebrity–obsessed 1960s, chaos came even more naturally, “the minotaur’s” complicated entanglements with his ex–wives and many mistresses took center stage. Even his children became embroiled in the chaos that swirled around him well after his death. His granddaughter is selling the remaining artwork she owns of his as a way of removing the last memories of a disturbing past. The estimated $290 million dollars she will net for the works won’t hurt either.


Art critics of the time dismissed his later work as the feeble putterings of an old man past his prime. After his death in 1973, his last efforts were duly recognized as the first prototypes of “neo–expressionism.” In death, Pablo Picasso was still ahead of his time.








Fun factoid


In his later years, Picasso never bought anything with cash, writing personal checks for even small items like newspapers and quarts of milk. He knew that the checks would never be cashed because his signature was worth far more than any purchase amount.












Your Thoughts




  1. Are you a fan of Picasso’s art, or are his severe styles too jarring for your enjoyment? Is it possible to recognize and admire the genius of an artist, even when you wouldn’t want one of his or her paintings hanging in your living room?
  2. Do you think an artist has a duty to keep exploring new directions for his or her art, even after critical and financial success has been achieved with a particular style?
  3. Do the less than flattering details of an artist’s love life or religious beliefs affect how you view their art? Is it possible to entirely separate feelings about the individual artist from the quality of the work of art?
  4. Picasso is often cited as the twentieth century’s greatest painter. Are there others you think more deserving of that “crown?”










Comments17
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Haterz gon' hate......
If you don't have anything nice to say..........

IMHO; Picasso is shit. Nothing to do with "Jarring" or "severe". I find it impossible that anyone feels the man was an artist. I can find no recognition nor admiration in a grown man's "art" that is wholly reminiscent of a five year old's finger painting....I wish I could give an "A" for originality, but then we go back to that 5 year old again.......Sorry.