Picasso

Now is the time in this period of changes and revolution to use a revolutionary manner of painting and not to paint like before. - Pablo Picasso, 1935. (Barnes) Undoubtedly Pablo Picasso is one of the most famous and well-documented artists of the twentieth century. Picasso, unlike most painters, is even more special because he did not confine himself to canvas, but also produced sculpture, poetry, and ceramics in profusion. Although much is known about this genius, there is still a lust after more knowledge concerning Picasso, his life and the creative forces that motivated him. This information can be obtained only through a careful study of the events that played out during his lifetime and the ways in which they manifested themselves in his creations (Penrose).

As Rachel Barnes points out in her introduction to Picasso by Picasso: Artists by Themselves, there seemed to be no doubt that Picasso would become a painter. In order to better hone his prodigious abilities, Picasso attended the Academy in Barcelona for a brief period of time. He spent most of his early years painting in Paris, where he progressed through various periods - including a Blue period from 1900 to 1904 and a Rose period in 1904 - before creating the Cubist movement that lasted until the beginning of the First World War.

Picasso's development toward cubism reached its climax with the monumental justly celebrated Demoiselles d'Avignon (1906). This painting, named for a brothel in Barcelona's Avignon Street, depicts, in a highly stylized form, five angular nude or partially draped women grouped around an arrangement of fruit. This final, condensed version, developed through many preparatory works, was attained by gradual simplifications and eliminations of an originally conspicuous subject matter. Picasso shows a rethinking of the human body in Les Demoiselles.# This ranges from a simplified naturalism, (in the centre figures) to an increased sense of fragmentation in to angular forms, each of which appears to have an independent existence. Such disjunction of body parts challenged the standards by which the human body had been constructed before. In synchronicity, the background elements of draperies and wall were fragmented, aligned with the figural handling.

Picasso initiated Cubism at the age of twenty-six after he already had established himself as a successful painter. According to SouchÐ'‚re, Picasso led the evolution towards cubism in order to "escape the tyranny of the laws of the tangible world, to fly beyond all the degradations of the lie, the stupidity of criticism, towards that total freedom which inspired his youth." As Barnes notes, Cubism was an art that concentrated on forms, and an artist's job was to give life to that form. Until this goal is accomplished, the Cubist painter has not fully realized his purpose.

After his initial Cubist period, Picasso moved through various other stages. He experimented with sculpture and still lifes, and by his death at the age of ninety-two, could be considered "the most famous and talked about painter in recent history." (Barnes). After progressing past Cubism, Picasso frequently came back to this style of painting because, as stated by SouchÐ'‚re, Picasso felt liberated and powerful when painting this way and believed Cubism to be the best way to speak out against the scandalous outer world. As Picasso pointed out Cubism "is the attitude of aggression" that could give him complete control over himself, his emotions, and his surroundings. This logically leads to a brief discussion of what Picasso felt was art and what he considered the duty of the artist to be. In a brief conversation with one of his biographers, Picasso commented that he saw art as something not to be understood or interpreted. Everyone wants to understand art.... In the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works out of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things, things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them (Barnes). Picasso painted for himself, as a release from the pressures of his society and as a way to express his thoughts and problems in tangible form. For this reason, the events happening around the time of any Picasso work must be understood before the true meaning of any resulting art can be understood. In the time period directly before the painting of Bull's Skull, Fruit, Pitcher, many hardships befell Picasso. As William Rubin explains, during the winter of 1938, Picasso was bedridden with a severe attack of sciatica. Two other tragic events happened to Picasso during the month of January 1939. On January 13, Picasso's mother died. On the 26th, Franco's army completed its victory over the Spanish republic and set up its fascist regime. These two events had a profound effect on Picasso. He thereafter openly expressed his negative feelings towards Franco's regime and used his paintings, especially his great mural Guernica to "clearly express [his] abhorrence of the military caste which", he believed, had "sunk Spain [into] an ocean of pain and death." (Barnes) The way Picasso set about painting has been well documented by many people. Roland Penrose, in writing about a photographic study of the artist at work, eloquently describes the conflicting influences seen in Picasso's method of creation. The first is the positive clarity with which the idea is born. Picasso, particularly when he begins to draw on a virgin surface, seems to trace the outline of a vision which is already there but visible only to him. For a time he continues with complete conviction but as the drawing materializes a second phase begins which is like a dialogue between him and the image to which he has given birth. The image has already been given a personality of its own which can provoke surprises that demand to be taken into account. Picasso 'the finder' can now interpret the impatient demands of his offspring and with a parent's insight he guides his child as it grows in stature or rescues it if it stumbles. The artist and his creation during this time are inseparably linked; they reciprocate, and rise or fall together. He is the product of his own work. (Barnes) Furthermore, as Picasso pointed out to Christian Zervos: I see for others, that is to say, in order to put on canvas the sudden apparitions which come to me, I don't know in advance what I am going to put on canvas any more that I decide beforehand what colours I am going to use. While I am working I am not conscious of what I am putting on the canvas. Each time I undertake to paint a picture I have a sensation of leaping into space. I never know whether I