PICASSO - 4

It's important that we know that smoking and drinking (bottles, glasses, pipes) were long traditions as symbols in painting.  Their images represent mental intoxication and stimulation of the imagination. 

Still Life with a Bottle of Rum - 1911

Picasso painted Still Life with a Bottle of Rum during the summer of 1911 in Ceret, the small town in the French Pyrenees that was popular with poets, musicians and artists--expecially the Cubists--before World War I.  Ceret has been called the "spiritual home of Cubism."

This painting is a series of brown, yellow and black tones arranged in a chaotic geometry.   

One is hard-pressed to see the bottle of rum.  In the upper center of the picture are what seem to be the neck and opening of a bottle.  Spidery black lines to the left of it may denote sheet music, and the round shape lower down, the base of a glass.  In the center, at the far right, is the pointed spout of a Spanish wine bottle.  

Notice how Picasso included letters in this painting.  It's been suggested that the ones shown on the left, LETR refer to LeTorero, the magazine for bullfighting fans (Picasso being one of them) but they might simply be a pun on letter, French for 'word.'  Other critics suggest the letters refer to the town of Ceret.  Picasso was known for his use of letters and words in his work, and for his dyslexia, which may have influenced his work. People with dyslexia silently suffer with reading.  It only makes sense that he would incorporate letters in his work that reflect his personal struggle.

We're going to have to use our wildest imagination here to see Picasso's own face staring out of the canvas at us.  Do you see the eye?  Right above the eye is his well-known hair-style crossing his forehead crossing his forehead. (close-up to right)

Picasso painted a pipe in the right foreground of this painting.  Look for a cone-shaped bowl.  

Woman in a Hat With Flowers - 1944

(painting to left) This is a picture Picasso painted of his mistress and primary model, Dora Maar, from 1935 to 1943.  Notice how he painted her name at the bottom....upper case D, O, cursive r, and uppercase sideways A.

Dora Maar's face is the center of the picture.  Her neck and upper torso are wrapped in a large, white garment.

Her hat sweeps upward from her hairline.  A number of Picasso's characteristic distortions appear in this work:  her mouth and nose are depicted in profile, her nostrils are grossly exaggerated, and her dark eyes are set at different levels.  The red and yellow striped hat, with flowers growing from the top, sets off her face against the green polka dots of the background.

What can Cubism teach us?

• To see a subject from various angles.
• To think boldly and embrace experimentation, push the boundaries of expression.
• To break objects into smaller elements, to see how an artist can express an object's entire visual understanding simultaneously on a flat surface.
• To be detectives....how to piece together fragments and clues to create the vision of an object.  Each person will see the image differently.

Cubism was created to break old ideas about art, changing the vision and meaning of what art can be.  The radical new style challenged how things are seen.  Instead of giving us a single point of view, it gave multiple points of view...making all of the sides of an object visible at the same time.

Cubism was developed partly in response against the tightly controlled styles of painting that had dominated studios for previous generations.  Artists, like Picasso, rejected the idea that art should merely imitate nature or follow traditional techniques like perspective and modeling.  Instead, they emphasized two-dimensions, breaking down objects into geometric forms and rearranging them within a shallow, relief-like space. When a work of art is classified as being 2-dimensional, it means the composition possesses the dimensions of length and width, but does not possess depth.  All 2-dimensional pieces of art (drawings, paintings and prints) are made up of shapes.