Class 9 2.16.

16
Painters
Pablo Picasso
Georges Braque

1905
Henri Matisse- colorful
Pablo Picasso- symbolist painting
Picasso and Cubism I
Cubism has 2 phases= analytic and synthetic
Life of one of its key artists
Pablo Picasso
1881-1973
Spain
Father= painter, art teacher, and museum curator
Family moved to Barcelona 1895
Growing up around art
Picasso was a prodigy in an art-world family. He was exposed to many historical art works.
Picasso, First Communion, 1895-96, o/c
He was 14 when he created this
1901-5 Picasso’s “Blue Period” (symbolist period)
Self-Portrait, 1901, o/c
Symbolist; spiritual color of blue; very young man trying to portray himself old
May be looking at other artist who are doing self portraits like Van Gogh
Blue period begins
Burial of Casagemas (Evocation), 1901, o/c
1901- Picasso’s friend Casagemas committed suicide
“Blue Period” = Picasso began traveling back and forth between Paris and Barcelona
Two Women in a Bar, 1902, o/c
Probably drinking acid; neurotoxin
La Vie, 1903, o/c, 6’5” x 4’2”
(life size)
another mystery; could be about life and death
tall man is thought to be a portrait of Picasso’s friend Carlos Casagemas
Picasso is short in height
Rose or Pink Period (1905-6)
Two Nudes, 1906, o/c
Warm tones; flesh like; honing in the female figure; strange faces of the women from
different angles; ancient Iberian sculpture (big, long noses; huge eyelids and defined eyebrows)
Draw from a non-Western art (interested in ancient art/sculpture)
Picasso had been traveling back and forth to Paris since 1900; but in 1904 moved there
1. Major Ingres exhibition in Paris in 1905 (J.A.D. Ingres, the Turkish Bath, 1863)
a. Pattern and contour of human flesh; pushed up to the front
2. 1905 Autumn Salon with the Fauve Premiere
a. a challenge for him; Matisse was older than him
3. Picasso meets Gertrude Stein
a. Gertrude Stein, 27 Rue de Fleurus, Paris, 1905
b. Introduced each other with Stein and Matisse
 c. Artist and writers would meet here by being picked
d. Leo and Gertrude’s Paris Apartment; self portrait was done by Picasso
e. Picasso, Gertrude Stein, 1905-6, o/c; 39 x 32”
i. Opposite of Matisse; darker colors to create darker detail of clothing; face is like
Iberian culture
Iberian influence on Picasso’s painting
Self-portrait
Picasso saw this at the 1906 Salon des Independantes
Matisse, Joie de Vivre, 1906, o/c
Curving lines; colorful and huge
Flow looking; sexual and nude
Picasso, Les Demoiselles D’ Avignon, 1907, o/c, 8’ x 7’8”
Sexual paintings
From a brothel
Scarier looking; femme fatalle; a different abstraction; jagged edges and sharp
Not much background; suggestion of curtains
Story of figuring out the early sketching of Demoiselles; get rid of the men in the image
Postcard of a Paris brothel
Compared to the Matisse painting it’s very different
Protrude of prostitutes; colorful; comforting and welcoming
Picasso’s women look as if they are confronting the viewer
African tribal masks may be the influence of their faces; off in the Ivory Coast
Picasso began collecting African sculpture
Due to the colonizing of Africa
Picasso speaking in the 1930s of his painting of 1907
Talking about the African masks; spiritual painting; calls it his first exorcism painting
Different comparisons of the faces could be of different masks and he used his own face
He wanted to create a more of an impact than Matisse
Compressed space, fractured form
Figures parts become hidden and mysterious of where their limbs are
Step toward cubism but not cubism
Not a lot of color
Steps away from sexy life forms to simple still life
Gets this influence in Cezanne
Bread and fruit dish on a table, 1908-9, o/c
Integrating the environment with the subject
After the Demoiselles, Picasso begins close study of Cezanne still life ptgs: adjustment of 3D objects to flat
picture plane
George Braque (1882-1962)
Began in France
But Braque was also interested in Cezanne
Braque, View of L’ Estaque, 1906
Goes to where Cezanne lives and the same places of his creation
Braque tries to capture the flattened, 2-D landscapes of Cezanne
House at L’ Estaque, 1908, o/c
While studying Cezanne and working with Cezanne
Picasso, the reservoir, Horta de Ebro, summer, 1909
Very abstract; merge with each other; don’t respect natural perspective
Return to Paris in the Fall; they kept in contact and worked together more
Analytical Cubism
1909-11
 A painting dialogue between Picasso and Braque
 Work completely drained of color
 More and more abstract
 Figure and ground disappear; ground becomes part of figure
o Drained paintings of color (to oppose the Fauves to concentrate on form)
o Broke down 3D reality and reassembled it on a 2-D plane (or a shallow narrow space)
o Fragmented and faceted form and space
o Glance around the object (time/space) “Multiple pov”
o And importantly not just “style” a “method” and a “revolution” in art
 Picasso, The Accordionist, 1911
o Body and surroundings; fractured body
o Stifled brush stroke
o Render another texture; theoretical space
o Form merges with space
o Never nonobjective
o Shallow space as if pressed between planes
o Fracturing space/time allows for depiction of movement
o Multiple of view
o Never with a light source
 Drained of color- to concrete form and space
 Picasso and Braque are never nonobjective
 Compared to Kandinsky’s Composition IV
o He wants nonobjective and no subject matter
o Picasso would never think that
 No philosophy; atheist
 Braque, Le Portuguese, 1911, o/c
o Person is there but can’t be seen
o Instrument is there but unknown on what it is
o Add letters and words
o Use stencils to create it even flatter
o By 1911 words appearing in the paintings
o Levels of reality: “real” letters stenciled on “cubist” space
o Very complicated work
 Cubism reflected the early 20th century fascination with time
o HG Wells’ The Time Machine already published in 1895, translated into French in a popular
French magazine in 1898-99
o Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity E= mc 2 published in 1905
o Learning more about the 4D
o His friend gave him a math book, Elemental Treatise on 4 th Dimensional Geometry
 Picasso, Woman’s Head (Fernande Olivier) 1909, bronze
o Take a shot at casting bronze
o Trying to imagine the fracturing of form
o Picasso experimenting