1: INSIGHTS INTO THIS ICONIC ARTIST
Whether or not this is an apocryphal story I do not know but it is said that at the beginning of World War I Gertrude Stein was walking with Picasso on the boulevard Raspail. A camouflaged truck came by. They had heard of camouflage but had never seen it, and upon sighting the vehicle Picasso exclaimed, "Yes, it is we who made it, that is cubism."
Make it he did as the world now knows , and he began with "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," a picture then reviled as the work of a mad man. Braque is quoted as saying "that it made him feel as if someone were drinking gasoline and spitting fire." This work was something that fellow artists could not understand, and was not seen in public until 1937. We can only imagine how shocking this painting was- what had been begun as a temptation scene in a brothel wound up being a painting of five nudes and a still life. And, what nudes these were - the antithesis of the classical concept of beauty. These figures were all sharp angles, even space is shown in broken pieces or wedges.
Yet despite vitriolic criticism Picasso persevered, once saying he did not believe that he had used radically different elements in his different manners of painting. But, "If subjects I have wanted to express have suggested different ways of expression, I haven't hesitated to adopt them."
Today, of course, authorities are still unable to quantify the impact Cubism has had on 20th century art. Cubist Picasso, the exhibition catalogue for a monumental retrospective at the Musee National Picasso in Paris, brings together a trove of outstanding artworks as well as enlightening essays by today's foremost Picasso authorities. It serves not only as an invaluable resource for students and art aficionados but as a treasure to be studied, admired again and again.
- Gail Cooke
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