visual analysis paper choose one of these five pictures and compare with the ppt and write a paper
qidong songCubism
ART HISTORY 132
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Cubism
- leaders: developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque (c. 1907)
- definition: “The art of painting original arrangements composed of elements taken from conceived rather than perceived reality.”
-- Guillaume Apollinaire, The Beginnings of Cubism (1912) - significance: marks a rupture w/ European traditions traceable to Renaissance of pictorial illusionism and organization of compositional space in terms of linear perspective
- technique: breaks down subjects into geometric facets, showing several different aspects of one object simultaneously
- context: physics
- Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity (1905)
- reinterprets classical principle of relativity
- idea that we can formulate rules of nature which do not depend on our particular observing situation
- quantities such as length and time must change from one observer to another
Pablo Picasso
(1881-1973)
- biography: SP
- grew up in Barcelona
- training:
- father instructor at art school
- Academy of Arts, Madrid
- first visited Paris during 1900 World’s Fair
- during two month stay, immersed himself in art galleries
- frequented Montmartre bohemian cafés, night-clubs, and dance halls
- settled in Paris (1904)
- friendly w/ artist Georges Braque, w/ whom he developed Cubism
- writers Max Jacob and Apollinaire
- style: changed throughout career
- Blue Period (1901-04)
- Rose Period (1904-05)
- Analytical Cubism (1905-1912)
- Synthetic Cubism (1912-21)
(Left) Cézanne Post-Impressionist Self Portrait (c. 1890)
vs.
(right) Picasso’s Cubist Self Portrait (c. 1910)
Cubism
- Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)
- title: refers to “red-light” district in Barcelona
- setting: artist’s studio
- spatial order: flattened & shallow
- subject: brothel scene
- P’s “first exorcism painting”
- life-threatening sexual disease
- source of anxiety in Paris
- earlier sketches link sexual pleasure to mortality
- figures: flat, splintered planes
- facial features: “primitive” masks
- asymmetrical
- features formed w/ thick, dark contour
- almond shaped eyes
- poses: both Classical & contorted
- color: muted, icy
(Left) Detail of still-life from Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)
vs.
(right) Cézanne’s Still Life (c. 1890-1900)
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Details of women’s faces
from Picasso’s The Women from Avignon (1907)
Picasso
- Woman w/ Mandolin (1910)
- aesthetic: Analytical Cubism
- Cubist vocabulary:
- eliminates naturalistic perspective
- monochromatic, muted color
- figure: abstracted
- overlapping & interlocking planes
- simplified, angular forms fractured into geometric components
- massing of body parts
- spatial order: shallow niche
(Left) Picasso’s Blue Period The Old Guitarist (1903)
vs.
(right) Picasso’s Analytical Cubist Woman w/ Mandolin (1910)
Picasso
- Ma Jolie (1911)
- title: “My Pretty One”
- aesthetic: Analytical Cubism
- forms: fractured into geometric components
- spatial order: 2-dimensional
- emphasizes flatness of canvas
- no traditional foreground/ middle-ground/background
- perspective: simultaneity
- color: monochromatic
- brushwork: patchy
- light/shadow: limited volumes
- innovation: inclusion of words
Picasso
- Still-life w/ Chair Caning (1912)
- aesthetic: Synthetic Cubism
- technique: collage
- “found objects” from outside world (e.g., rope, oilcloth)
- aim: to displace reality
- format: oval
- spatial order/perspective:
- ambiguous/ paradoxical
- multiple views (side & top)
- color: muted
- light/shadow: transparent, refractive
- word play: “Jou”
- jou[rnal]
- Latin root game
Picasso
- Guitar & Sheet Music (1912)
- aesthetic: Synthetic Cubism
- aim: to engage in aesthetic “battle”
- attack on conventional aesthetics
- Cubism anarchism
- medium: collage
- cut paper
- wall paper
- word play: ‘Le Jou’
- forms: synthesized from materials
- color: not strictly monochromatic
- still life: glass multiple views
Picasso’s Synthetic Cubist
Three Musicians
(1921)
Picasso:
Inter-War Years
- The Lovers (1923)
- aesthetic: Classicizing tenendency
- forms: outlined by dark contour
- perspective: overlapping/forshortened
- facial features: idealized
- color: vibrant range of primaries & complimentaries
- brushwork: large, unmodulated areas
- light/shadow: evenly distributed
Picasso:
Inter-War Years
- Woman in front of Mirror (1932)
- aesthetic: variation Synthetic Cubism
- forms: outlined by thick, dark contour
- patternization: emphasizes 2-d surface of canvas
- perspective: simultaneity & reversals
- facial features: profile & frontal
- color: vibrant range of primaries & complimentaries
- brushwork: large, unmodulated areas
- light/shadow: limited; silhouetted
Picasso’s Guernica (1937)
- context: Spanish Civil War (1936-39)
- started after coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals
- ended w/ victory of rebel forces, overthrow of Republican government, and founding of dictatorship led by General Francisco Franco
- subject matter: bombing of SP town, Guernica, by twenty-eight German Nazi air force, on April 26, 1937 during Spanish Civil War
- theme: tragedies of war upon innocent civilians (see Goya’s Third of May, c. 1815)
- exhibition history: SP Republicans commissioned Picasso to create large mural for Spanish display at Paris International Exposition in the 1937 World's Fair
- scale: 11 x 25 ½ ft.
- color scheme: monochromatic
- setting: interior
- iconography:
- Pietà
- Gallic bull
- horse
- wounded soldier
- Omens
PICASSO’s Guernica
(1937)
Iconographic details from PICASSO’s Guernica
(Left) Pietà scene and Gallic bull
vs.
(right) writhing horse and illuminated light bulb
Iconographic details from PICASSO’s Guernica
(Left) Omens
vs.
(right) wounded man
IMAGE INDEX
- Slide 3: PICASSO Self-Portrait (1904)
- Slide 4: (Left) CEZANNE, Paul. Self-Portrait (1882), Oil on canvas, 25 5/8 x 20 5/8 in., Tate Gallery, London; and (right) PICASSO Self-Portrait (1907).
- Slide 5: PICASSO, Pablo. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), Oil on canvas, 8’ x 7’ 8”, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
- Slide 6: Details of still-life from PICASSO’s Analytical Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907).
- Slide 7: Details of women’s faces in PICASSO’s Analytical Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907).
- Slide 8: PICASSO, Pablo. Woman with a Mandolin (1910), Oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 29 in., The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
- Slide 9: (Left) PICASSO’s Blue Period The Old Guitarist (1903- 04), Oil on panel, 122.9 x 82.6 cm., Art Institute of Chicago; and (right) PICASSO’s Analytical Cubist Woman with a Mandolin (1910).
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IMAGE INDEX
- Slide 10: PICASSO, Pablo. Woman with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier) Paris, spring (1910), Oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 29 in., The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
- Slide 11: PICASSO, Pablo. Still Life with Chair Caning (1912), Collage of oil, oilcloth, and pasted paper simulating chair caning on canvas, 10 1/2 x 13 3/4 in., Musee Picasso, Paris.
- Slide 12: PICASSO. Guitar, Sheet Music, Glass (1912), Papers and newsprint pasted, gouache and charcoal on paper, 48 x 36.5 cm., McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX.
- Slide 13: PICASSO, Pablo. Three Musicians (1921), Oil on canvas, 6 ft 7 in x 7 ft 3 3/4 in., The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
- Slide 14: PICASSO, Pablo. The Lovers (1923), Oil on canvas, 51 ¼ x 38 ¼ i., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Slide 15: PICASSO, Pablo. Woman in front of a Mirror (1932), Oil on canvas, 162.3 x 130 cm, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
- Slide 17: PICASSO, Pablo. Guernica (1937), Oil on canvas, 137.4 in × 305.5 in., Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid.
IMAGE INDEX
- Slide 18: Iconographic details from PICASSO’s Guernica (Left) Pietà scene and Gallic bull; and (right) writhing horse and illuminated light bulb
- Slide 19: Iconographic details from PICASSO’s Guernica (Left) Omens; and (right) wounded man.