Monday, August 17, 2015

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time, pierrots and harlequins were popular in literature, especially in works dating from La Forgue to Apollinaire (Jung 352-354).

The crippled and deformed figures in the earlier works of Picasso contrast with the agile grace of the bodies of the circus people. A preference for representing single figures in their solitude will give way to related figure compositions. Picasso began to establish a harmony, a peace, which seemed possible due to an improvement in his economic and social situation and a more amicable environment.

In 1905, Picasso painted over twenty-five versions of harlequins including one that is definitely a self-portrait dressed in harlequin costume. Four of these paintings are closely related to each other and to the previously mentioned "Portrait of a Dominican" (15A) and the "Portrait of an Unknown Lady" (9A) by El Greco.

"The Frugal Repast" 1904 (16)

Picasso searched "Napoleon Visiting the Pest House at Jaffa" (16A) by Antoine Jean Gros and Titian's "Ecce Homo" (16B) to find faces for his "The Frugal Repast" (16). Interested in portraying misery and suffering, Picasso preferred to study misfortune at some distance now through the eyes of other artists.

Hamilton relates this work to the production of Picasso's friend Nonell: “The simplified contours and modeling may owe something to his friend and compatriot Isidro Nonell y Monturiol (1872-1911), whom Picasso knew in Barcelona and whose studio in Paris he shared for a time. Nonell had treated the theme of the physically and mentally handicapped in his drawings of the "Cretins" of Bohi in 1896, with similarly encompassing outlines and broadly modelled forms. In his work around 1900 there is the same atmosphere of physical and moral fatigue that we find in Picasso's. He also used monochromatic schemes, usually a dark blue-green” (Hamilton 142).

"Salome" 1905 (17)


"Salome," a drypoint (17) is another example of the impact of Ingres.

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