Pablo Picasso: The Life of Picasso - Pablo Picasso: I do not seek. I find.

Author: (French) Pierre Daix / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-10-01
Features: In 1971, I told Picasso that I assumed he didn’t value his early academic works much. He immediately corrected me: “On the contrary, they are very important to me.” This should be put on the same level as money. Picasso understood from the beginning that to gain creative freedom, he had to make a living. Most of his friends came from affluent families, established in business or light industry. His financial struggles were clearly one of the reasons for his early maturity. In his works from April 1899, there is no trace of academic influence at all. For example, in one painting, the faces of a couple pressed closely together are completely blank. This simplification was no coincidence. He used the same technique again when painting his father’s portrait. In many of these portraits, we see a small oil painting with a romantic rhythm, framed by the sea, depicting an old man. From then on, José was just one of his many models. Pablo also painted his young sister, Lola. In these works, we can see his new direction, which was also a characteristic of that period. First, he was accustomed to using long, vertical brushstrokes, giving his style a taste of El Greco. Next was his obsession with windows. Either he painted windows purely for the sake of painting windows—like The Closed Window, which depicts the view of the buildings opposite his studio—or the window was his studio’s window, and he needed to claim his workspace through painting. Sometimes he arranged Lola or another girl sitting in front of the window to create a contre-jour effect, highlighting the abstracted face or reflecting a snow-covered landscape. This effort to focus on light also dominated his most ambitious works of that period: Portrait of Josep Cardona, where the subject is working under a lamp. When elongating the face and body, the most fundamental elements were the vertical brushstrokes and lines that created rhythm. For example, in a surviving watercolor at the Guggenheim Museum, a lively sketch of a street shows two long queues formed by prostitutes leading to the Angel of Death. The theme of death would also become the subject of his last academic work—Last Moments. Why did Picasso, after completing Science and Charity, return to the same theme three years later? He was not one to linger on past achievements. A motivation more in line with his personality might have been his desire to assess how much he had changed since the winter of late 1896 and early 1897 until now. Strangely enough, his rearrangement of this theme involved depicting a mother kneeling in prayer before her child’s bed—was he intentionally reflecting on the death of his younger sister, Conception? I believe he was. Picasso believed that when we are determined to conquer life, we must first confront death and master it through our brushstrokes. Now we know that he used the largest available canvas at the time, 120 cm in size, for this work, and we also know that he bet everything on its creation. That painting was exhibited early on—The Four Cats, where it was also his first exhibition there. At the same time, to engage in a confrontation with the lords within the realm of modernist artists, he also painted portraits of them, better than any regular hotel guest. All of them were spontaneous charcoal and watercolor drawings; all showcased beautiful freehand techniques: some were almost like cartoons, like the portrait of Ramón—viewed from behind! Each was completed in the blink of an eye, lightning-fast, unbound by any rules. There were also dozens of portraits, including Picot and his new friend Casajimas. The three-quarter-length self-portrait was very romantic (deliberately made to look older than his actual age), with a simple signature: “Yo!” (I!). He was walking on two boats, showcasing his extraordinary talent in mastering two styles. In the months of early 1900, this young man, not yet 18, was already confident in his own gifts. By depicting portraits of celebrities like Lucien and Casas, he was essentially claiming them as his peers. According to Parrau, Picasso’s boldness seemed to invite envy. Alfred Opisso, the editor of La Vanguardia, “discovered” Casajimas in March but was “unaware” of Picasso in February. But by then, Picasso was already sure he had made it. Last Moments would represent Spain in the Paris Universal Exposition’s decade-long retrospective. For his trip to Paris, Picasso worked tirelessly, and we cannot be certain whether the series of “food” works were all rushed. Based on their themes rather than their craftsmanship, we can infer that they were mainly painted for sale. The menu Picasso designed for The Four Cats (absolutely modern) transformed Ramón’s tavern into a lavish hangout for the elite, and the style of modernism became particularly striking. His bullfight scenes—whether in outlined charcoal or pastel—were often “typical,” though occasionally they revealed new experimental methods. With the help of Canals (who had seen many works by Degas in Paris), Picasso had already begun experimenting with printmaking. The result was a bullfighter portrait titled el Zurdo (The Left-Hander), because at that time, Picasso didn’t know that prints would be reversed. He was increasingly commissioned to illustrate literary magazines, and his relationship with Casajimas grew stronger. He accompanied the latter to visit his family’s property in Sitges, Catalonia, where Lucien was also staying; they visited Lucien’s residence, Cau Ferrat, a veritable museum of modernism; and they went to Badalona. But in every oil painting or sketch portrait, he emphasized the darker side of his friend’s personality. Savartes clearly understood Picasso’s inner character, but Picasso jokingly depicted Savartes as a decadent poet. When Savartes heard about Picasso’s trip to Paris, he was still shocked: “We really can’t understand this adventure. He gave up his studio, left his family, and bid farewell to all of us.” The pastel works he painted in Paris were all signed with the name “P.R. Picasso.” The presence of his father now remained only as an abbreviation.