Picasso in Pa.? You mean New York, don’t you — the MOMA? No, Pa.! Seriously, there’s lots of good stuff here and in Philly and elsewhere. But The Barnes Foundation was established by Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to “promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts.” It is now outside Philadelphia at Lincoln University and has one of the “largest collections of Impressionists, and Post-Impressionists and early Modern paintings,” with paintings by Matisse, Cezanne, Renoir and Modigliani and others; and did I mention Picassos? How about 46 of them?!
Pablo Picasso was born Oct., 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain, and died in Mougins, France, in 1971 at the advanced age of 91. De Kooning was also that age at his death.
He was a prodigy that was trained by his father and also at The Madrid Academy of Arts. He was the founder, with Braques, of “Cubism,” the most important movement of modern art, and some say the founder of modern art itself, though I say that that would be pushing it. He was also a great genius and the most important artist of the 20th Century, as well the most prolific one, having created nearly 50,000 works of art.
He was a pacifist who later became a communist. He was a bigger-than-life sort of man and was a lover of many women, who were his “muses.” And also of wine and cigarettes — he collected all the boxes of them neurotically. He was vain, arrogant, superstitious and had a terrible fear of death. He could also be kind, generous and rarely humble, and maybe even — I speculate — religious at times ( he was raised Catholic).
He went through many periods in his art most notably his earliest work, and then his famous Blue and Rose periods, but also his later African and Cubistic periods, and then his Classicist and Surrealist periods, and then his last work. He did live 91 years, after all!
He also stole a lot of ideas from other artists by his own admission — but always Picasso-ized them. He famously said that “the great steal from everyone!” He was influenced by Cezanne and also Matisse, who he competed with and saw as his only living rival.
Picasso had many children and suffered some sad tragedies in his life as well.
He was the first artist to sell his signature supposedly, or to make a work important just by doing so. His work is among the most expensive in the world.
Supposedly, a woman asked him to sketch him then offered to buy it. He said “Sure, for $5,000,” and she said “But it only took you a moment!” He answered for all artists everywhere, “No, madam, it took 30 years.”
His two greatest works of art are probably the “Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon” in 1907 — which was possibly the first Cubist painting — and “Guernica,” which was painted in 1937. Picasso was very influential on other artists such as de Kooning. When the huge Guernica came to New York, de Kooning stood before it, and, by his own admission, wept.
He is probably the most influential artist in the world, and my friends have repeatedly pointed out how influenced I am as well by his work, though I try my best not to be too influenced. Like Hegel in philosophy, you just can’t get away from him. People that say that they don’t like his work haven’t seen enough of it or don’t understand art at all, and a priori, I know that they will then hate mine for sure.
He is the artist most other artists relate my work to the most, and I am publicly declaring here and now that they are probably right. I relate a lot to his massive creativity, and I have seen films of him painting that do remind me of myself ( and others no doubt) stalking around the canvas like a tiger, smiling, frowning, mumbling at times; it was no doubt his ecstatic form of worship to the Divine.
The two works we are reviewing here are two heads, oil on canvas. They were both painted in 1907, and are therefore Cubist — or highly and abstractly geometrical. Cubism does not mean that everything has to be “cubes”!
Two painted heads: They are titled, “Head of a Woman” and “Head of a Man.” They must have been painted right after each or very closely together for they are very similar.
The colors are glorious earth tones in reds, browns and golds, with Picasso’s famous thick, black outlining that he will use throughout his life. It is almost a drawing technique for him, but with paint. It reminds me a lot of my own rough oil pastels, or the famous de Kooning’s use of oil sticks to paint with. And look at those huge shadows!
Look at how rough the lines are — how deliciously childlike, but a 30-year-old child! The faces are mask-like and almost puppet-like. The heads sit forlornly on the shoulders with no necks. The eyes are almond-shaped, and the women get staring eyeballs of sorts.
The noses are huge and out of proportion, maybe having sexual symbolism to him. Sex is very important to Pablo. His is bigger than ours, he is probably telling us! The hair is almost wig-like and almost seems to fit over the heads like African masks.
There is no simple realism here — no tricking of the eye with the technique of “Trompe L’Oeil”! This is a “painting,” a man- or human-made creation. It is what the philosopher Hegel would call a manifestation of the Absolute Spirit, which is a human spirit he does not absolutely separate from the Divine Spirit. Or as Karl Popper would say, it is member of “World 3,” that is to say a “thing” that is not either a subjective thought or experience, or a piece of objective nature. It is a fusion of Subject into Object/Nature — it is “Art.”
The heads fill almost the whole canvas in both works, with the head slightly larger in the male head. And what is in the background but an amorphousness of color. Both could be one of Picasso’s many self-portraits, especially the female head actually.
What do the heads tell us — are they happy or sad or what? They are both very existential, I would think and say. They are both somewhat sad maybe, or wondering about life, I suggest. “What does all this mean?!” I think they might be pondering. They don’t know, but they do know that they have to face both life and death anyway. They are examples of the great German Existentialist philosopher’s term for humans: “Being to Death”.
I like these people — they are real somehow — souls stare out at us from those painted soulful eyes. Don’t they?
I even think that they might know each other or are married, but now I’m pushing it maybe. …
Please check out Wikipedia’s excellent article on Picasso, and also please visit the Web site for The Barnes Foundation ( www.barnesfoundation.org) and maybe take a day trip with a friend to visit these two marvelous painted persons.
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