29 CHAP III

CHAPTER III

Generalized Classicism - 1905-1906

During the latter part of 1905 and most of 1906, Picasso's work contained figures at peace with themselves, each other and their environment. These new figures had fuller forms than the emaciated persons pictured earlier. He was working with balanced forms harmoniously arranged. Often Picasso's figures displayed his interest in the intervals between separate figures as he placed them against open space or simple blocks, rather than in any specific location.

Pool wrote that Picasso's "supremacy lies in the rhythm of his lines and the general architecture of his pictures which set him in the French 19th century tradition as a follower of Ingres." Picasso's economical color, swift line and generalized vision are classical in their attitude. The classical tradition was, in one sense, a revolt against the lack of form in Impressionism and the misty light in the work of artists in northern Europe. Picasso's work became more impersonal and detached. Form and clarity became important to him. Picasso saw the actual works of the Greek Classical periods as well as the archaic Greek and Etruscan marbles and bronzes in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Pool said that both the styles and the idyllic, Arcadian view of antiquity as seen through the eyes of Picasso's elders: Renoir, Gauguin, Puvis de Chavannes and Cezanne, contributed to this change in Picasso's work. There were important exhibitions of the work of these artists in 1904 and 1905 and Picasso would have had the opportunity to study the work of these artists. He had a copy of Gauguin's book, Noa- Noa, and "drew over" many of the pictures in that book. However, it was from Cezanne that Picasso gained a greater sense of structure and organization (Pool 122-123).

An exhibition of forty-three works by Puvis de Chavannes in 1904 at the Salon d'Automne is mentioned by Pool and she described the "Blend of naivete and sophistication, tranquil gestures of his figures, washes of cool colour, the geometric organization of his pictures and the simplified drawing (which) seem to have appealed to Picasso as they have done to Gauguin and Van Gogh” (Pool 124).

Picasso must also have been aware of the trend of current writing and the

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