Who, or What is Pablo Picasso?

Pablo Picasso, Cubist PeriodAre we examining the art or the artist?

"Its not what the artist does that counts, but what he is. Czanne would never have interested me abit if he had lived and thought like Jaques-mile Blanche, even if the apples he had painted had beenten times as beautiful. What forces our interest is Czannes anxiety, thats Czannes lesson; thetorments of Van Gogh that is the actual drama of the man. The rest is a sham."

-Pablo Picasso

This quote by Picasso isfrom Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art, by Alfred H. Barr (Museum of ModernArt, New York, 1946). In it Picasso summed up what, in his mind, the act of creation is really about:the changing state of the artist himself. While judging the wide-ranging stylistic diversity of Picassosbody of work it is easy to see how one may say that Picasso seemed to live out that philosophy in hisown creative endeavors, but where does that leave a student, art fan, or critic when trying tounderstand who Picasso was or what his work really meant? Should his entire body of work beconstrued as one long, hard to interpret existential statement sent from one isolated individual to allothers? What does this say to us about his incredible commercial success and willingness to sell hiswork at need? Are small parts http://www.hometips.com/ of his life being sold away with each newauction or transaction? If all work is a view of the current state of an artist, in context ofthechanging state of the artist, why would Picasso create art that depicted actual events such asGuernica in 1937 or Massacre in Korea in 1953? Why create communication at all?Understandingart as the artists personal statement has stood out as Picassos contribution andlegacy to art in the twentieth century. Rightly or wrongly, Picasso forced everyone to view things ashe personally could best understand or relate to them. This interpretation of his life and work hasleft a lasting impact on the art world as it developed throughout the twentieth century.

Ma Jolie

Credit: Pablo Picasso 1911-1912

Deconstructing Reality, In Order to Realize It

Any serious study of art in the twentieth century must deal with Picasso, and any serious study ofPicasso must deal with Cubism. Cubism may have been Picassos greatest contribution to art as adynamic progression of ideas and styles. Many attempts have been made by both artists and artwriters to discuss the true nature of Cubism. Some Cubist artists, such as Jean Metzinger in 1910,felt it was merely a divergent form of other larger movements. He claimed through Cubisms clevermixing of the successive and the simultaneousPicasso confesses himself a realist. Alongside thisinterpretation Cubism is seen as an attempt to get at the true objective nature of an object; truerealismthrough scientific analysis. (Steinberg, 65) Yet, it is well known that Picasso was incapable ofusing a system of mathematical analysis to create and interpret his art. (Penrose, 153) He alsodetested doing studies of his subjects leading up to the creation of a work.

If Cubism was neither scientific nor analytical, than what was the goal of the movement? If not todisplay an object in its entirety from all possible points of view, simultaneity of point of view, thanperhaps to absorb [the subjects] dismembered parts in the field. (Steinberg, 66) Perhaps to show theviewer of the painting that the rest is a sham. What you see before you is not in and of itselfimportant, but what you, or another human being, make of it inside your own head becomes the truesubstance of the object for you. Picasso and Braque were not creating representations of objectstodivorce them from their surroundings when they worked together during their Cubist collaborationperiod; rather they were changing the nature of the relationships between the painted image andreality. (Berger, 51) Acting in a spirit of modernism, Picasso was giving to the painter what seemed abirthright of man under the false confidence bred by powerful scientific discoveries: the ability toalter his world to suit his purposes. The optimismread into Cubisms bold restructuring of the naturalworld was shattered, as were many other things,by World War I.

Man With a Pipe

Credit: Pablo Picasso 1915

Picasso strove to escape the bother of the invasion of France in 1914 by focusing on his art; hepainted Cubist pictures that were almost defiantly exuberant for a time. (Wertenbaker, 73)Ultimately, he began to draw naturalistically, as if admitting that Cubism was in all reality unable toreshape Picassos world for him. (Wertenbaker, 74) The geometry of Cubism may have protectedPicasso from too complete a revelation and allowed him to work closer to his image. (Wight, 133) Itis suggested Picassos art wasa means for him to avoid confronting reality, hence the separation fromreality inherent in Cubism. Although the entire episode may seem as if it runs counter to Picassosstatement about the nature of art, was not Cubism so divergent and influential because of the art

itself and not the man inside it? It seems that the transition from Cubism to more natural work andthe development of Surrealism in Parade actually show that Cubism can be seen as a phase inPicassos life that is consistent with his feelings about the nature of art.

Costume from Parade

Credit: Pablo Picasso 1917

"The Cubists created a system by which they couldrevealvisually the interlocking of phenomena. Andthus they created in artthe possibility ofrevealing processes instead of static states of being. Cubismis an art entirely concerned with interaction: the interaction between different aspects: theinteraction between structure and movement: the interaction between solids and the space aroundthem: the interaction between the unambiguous signs made on the surface of the picture and thechanging reality which they stand in for." (Berger, 69)

If Cubism is really an art that reveals processes instead ofstatic existence as Berger says, than itcould very easily fit into Picassos belief that he is merely showing the changing states of himself.Thus, since everything of Picassos after Cubism builds upon or denies it, it is possible to recognizethe dynamic nature of himself and his art walking hand in hand. Picasso never entirely got awayfrom Cubism indefinitely, but when he changed his mode of painting, it undoubtedly coincided with achange in his state of mind. He began to realize the fullness of Cubism when he began to use manydifferent approaches to express his ideas and feelings...in 1917. (Jaff, 31)

Guernica

Credit: Pablo Picasso 1937

Something Larger than Picasso

WhyGuernica? If Cubism has stood as the tangible development of the artist as the dynamic factor inart as process, why do a work that comments outside the artist? How could a piece with the focus ofa tragic national event remain consistent with Picassos belief its not what the artist does that counts,but who he is. With Guernica Picasso is breaking new ground; he requires us, by virtue of hiscaptioning, to consider the mural not only as an abstraction but as an excursion into social protest aswell. (Clark, 97) If Guernica ventures from abstraction into a more tangible realm, how can itrepresent the artist as Picasso sees him without compromising the artist upon the grounds that thework is concerned with what is outside of the artist?

The very simple reason is Guernica "is a profoundly subjective work and it is from this that its powerderives. Picasso did not try to imagine the actual event. There is no town, no aeroplanes, noexplosion, no reference to the time of day, the year, the century or part of Spain where it happened.There are no enemies to accuse. There is no heroism. And yet the work is a protest and one wouldknow this even if one knew nothing of its history. Where is the protest then?" (Berger, 169)

The subjectivity of Guernica lay in the fact that Picasso did not paint what happened or what wasthere, as Berger noted, but Picasso painted what he imagined to himself that it must have felt like.Just as the pain and disfigurement of the Crying Woman etching from the same year is actuallyPicassos rendition of what he has projected her pain to be, Guernica in being painted is theimaginative equivalent of what happened to them in sensation in the flesh. (Berger, 169) It can onlybe Picassos imaginative equivalent though and no one elses that he paints, once again reaffirminghis belief in the individual presence of the artist in his work rather than the importance of the workas a stand-alone statement. Guernica demonstrates that Picasso is concerned with himself. He is aSpaniard. Why Guernica when he does nothing for or about France, where he had spent a great dealof his time, during World War I. It is all about Picasso, and the personal identity he is furtheringthrough Guernica. The people suffering are only important because they too are Spaniards, andtherefore, have something in common with Picasso. He may deal with them in his work because ofthe connection, or is it possible the motivation is even more selfish than that.

"The delusion of the mutilation or displacement of the essential organs and members of the body is awell-defined characteristic of certain types of mental illness, as Dr. Paul Schilder has pointed out in

his book, The Image and Appearance of the Human Bodythe sufferer experiences horrible sensationof inadequacy and helplessnessthese delusions arise from the inner instability of the victim and donot refer to any objective realityit is in such terms that Picasso has drawn his picture of the Spanishpeopleit would seem that what Picasso mourns is not so much the ruin of a Basque town as thedestruction of his own studiothe passing of that complex, introspective world where thesovereigntyof the artist has found during the last half century so convincing a semblance of reality."(Clark, 102)

Is it possible that rather than trying to raise consciousness about the plight of those suffering,Picasso is actually continuing to rebel against the fact that he can not control reality as easily as hefelt he could within Cubism. Much like he defiantly painted pieces to escape interaction with WorldWar I, is Picasso trying to separate himself from tragedy by displaying things in Guernica as heimagines they may be? Even in agreeing to do Guernica Picasso had refused to bow personalpreference to the cause he claimed to be supporting. He would not do the work until there had beenfound a studio which would give him sufficient scope. (Penrose, 268) Picasso was striving tomaintain control, bucking the feelings of contemporaries to whom the defense of democratic libertywas a matter of life and death. (Penrose, 266) Within Picassos world though, the pain of hiscountrymen, which undoubtedly touched him, was still to be held to rigorous, personal artisticstandards, which demanded the realization of the individual within the art be held in higher esteemthan the subject matter of the work. Hence Guernica, an aptly disfigured approximation of the terrorof war that holds within itself part of Picasso rather than merely the horror itself. Once again,Picasso can never be divorced from his work, because it is truly about him and nothing else in theend.

In all fairness, there is definitely one other thing that may never be divorced from Picassos work, orpossibly any work of art: subjectivity. There are other ways to view Guernica than as a selfish,psychologically revealing piece born of tragic circumstances. Guernica was an impassionedstatement of monumental protest to disillusion, to despair, to destruction. (Read, 104) Picasso, thegreatest artist of our time" was driven to this conclusionthat the only logical monument would be anegative monument. (Read, 104) Picasso is the prophet of our times who sums up the greedy,alienating, disillusionment of Europe and the world.

"Frustrated in his creative affirmations, limited in scope and scale by the timidity and customs of thisage, he can at best make a monument to the vast forces of evil which seek to control our lives: amonument of protestation. When those forces invade his native land, and destroy with calculatedbrutality a shrine peculiarly invested with the sense of glory, then the impulse to protest takes on amonumental grandeur. Picassos great fresco is a monument to destruction, a cry of outrage andhorror amplified by the spirit of genius." (Read, 105)

If we continue to take Picasso at his word, who he is defines his art, than perhaps Picasso was a manlike any other who had sentimental tendencies about his homeland. Perhaps the events of theSpanish Civil War had brought something new from within Picasso. He has a universal connectionwith the people, and his great work of art, transcending all schools and categories, is born; andbeing born, lives immortally. (Read, 105) Picasso could be felt to affirm his humanity through thisgreat work born of outrage against suffering and injustice upon the innocent. These contradictoryviewpoints and interpretations of Picasso the man and the artist were encouraged by his life.

Massacre in Korea

Credit: Pablo Picasso 1951

Biting the Hand? Picasso the Communist

Picasso, that great patriot who painted for liberty and equality, became a supporter of thecommunist party, opponent of individual thought and advancement. Picasso was the symbol ofcontemporary bourgeois society, and as such he was the ideological enemy of the communist party.(Raphael, 116) Picassos art from the sociological point of view reveals:

"(1) An excessive multiplicity, a disturbing abundance of the most unlike aspects, bothsimultaneously and successively inevitable in an artist whose personality if the symbol of thebourgeois ruling class, because he himself and his epoch are experiencing the most contradictorytensions. (2) Even a talent as great as his cannot do without auxiliary, and ends up as a repertory ofthe history of art. Today a great bourgeois artist is possible only as an eclectic genius. (3) The artistwhose debuts were so radical that he was generally held to be revolutionary, has proved, after thirtyyears of work, so far from being capable of solving the unsolved problem of the nineteenth century,i. e., of creating an art based upon materialist dialectics, that he has on the contrary gone to theother extreme: the feudal limits of the bourgeois, in the modern form of reaction." (Raphael, 116)

Picassos ever changing stylistic directions acted as the communication of the bourgeois becausetime after time [he discovered] forms in which the bourgeois class could assert and understanditself. (Raphael, 116) Despite, or perhaps because of, such stinging indictments of his lack of trueMarxist principle, Picassos program from an exhibition in 1934 claimed he was on the side of theworking class against the capitalist class. (Read, 128) Although this claim seems largely fabricatedsince Picasso's earnings came from the capitalist class.

Pablo Picasso stands as a giant of the twentieth century art world and the self-conscious,introspective discourse that has been so much a part of it. We may never know how selfish orselfless Picassos works truly were when he created them. All we know is that Pablo Picasso was anincredibly talented person with faults and triumphs the same as anyone, and he felt he was bestrepresented by his art: an ever-changing, dynamic portrait of the artist for the present. One of thebrightest lights of 20th century art, Picasso is but one part of a giant discussion which has helped toshape the world we are living in now.

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