persons
and objects, a metamorphosis, as if by magic into something else,
often disturbing or unexpected. In discussing one of his paintings
Picasso said that he was interested in making it more disturbing.
This is connected to his fascination with the magic of metamorphosis
or the changes of form, shape, structure or substance. It would have
been quite natural for him to effect this transformation by adapting
the works of the masters overlaying his images upon the formal
elements of their compositions. In essence, taking one thing and
turning it into another or finding the suggestion of an image hidden
in masterpieces like the childhood game of finding faces suggested in
the forms of clouds. An early example from 1903 is a landscape
drawing done in Barcelona “Nude Lying with Figures” (164) in
which Picasso creates imaginary faces and figures in the trees and
clouds and a nude in the foreground landforms. This approach recalls
Leonardo da Vinci's searching the cracks and patterns of his walls
looking for imaginary subjects to inspire him. Concerning
metamorphosis and its relation to his famous saddle and bicycle
handlebars which Picasso joined to make a bull's head Picasso said
“One
day I take the saddle and the handle bars, I put them one on top of
the other, and I make a bull's head. All well and good. But what I
should have done straight after was to throw away the bull's head.
Throw it into the gutter, anywhere, but throw it away. Then a workman
comes along. He picks it up. He thinks that with this bull's head he
could perhaps make a saddle and a set of bicycle handlebars and he
does it...that would have been magnificent. It is the gift of
metamorphosis”
(Picasso
qtd. in Parmelin 76-77) .
Brassai
quoted Picasso as saying in 1943 “It
seems strange to me that we ever arrived at the idea of making
statues from marble. I understand how you can see something in the
root of a tree, a crevice in a wall, a corroded bit of stone, or a
pebble...But marble? It stands there like a block, suggesting no form
or image. It doesn't inspire. How could Michelangelo have seen his
"David" in a block of marble? If it occurred to man to
create his own images, it's because he discovered them all around
him, almost formed, already within his grasp. He saw them in a bone,
in the irregular surfaces of cavern walls, in a piece of wood... One
form might suggest a woman, another a bison, and still another the
head of a demon”
(Picasso
qtd. in Brassai 66-67).
This
transformation was consistent with the 20th
century Surrealist
movement
in art. John Golding summarized this “Breton
pinpointed what was(164)
169

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