Monday, August 17, 2015

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"Mediterranean heritage" which was a reaction against the works of the Northern artists such as Nietzsche and Wagner. At this time, Charles Maurras, an important critic, advanced the idea that "Beauty is harmony" and a work of art "should be submitted to superior reason" with the "parts subordinated to the whole" (qtd. in Pool 127).

EXAMPLES FROM 1905

"Boy Leading a Horse" 1905 (22)

The production of Picasso during this period manifested an interest in this new classicism. One example of the influence of Greek Classical art is found in Picasso's "Boy Leading a Horse" (22). The figure of the boy is detached, serene and resembles the Greek Kouroi of the sixth century B.C., especially in the placement of one foot behind the other and the slim waist and chest. A painting of a boy "Bather" (22B)by Cezanne has the same attitude with arms bent and a hand resting on the hip. The feet in Picasso's version are seen from a lower viewpoint and are more foreshortened than the feet in his earlier figures which were like the feet of El Greco's figures pictured as though we were looking down at the top of the feet. Rembrandt's "Study of a Male Nude" (22A) may have contributed to this work.

A taste for El Greco and the gestures of his figures which are a form of mime in the manner of Greek Classical Miming could have prepared Picasso's vision for an attraction to Greek art. El Greco also influenced Picasso's concept of space. The Picasso paintings have the same shallow space as the space in El Greco's "St. Martin and the Beggar," but the flattened form of the distant landscape refers to the work of Puvis de Chavannes with a flatness not unlike stage scenery.

EXAMPLES FROM 1906

"La Coiffure" 1906 (23)


In 1967, the artist William Gambini showed me "La Coiffure" (23) by Picasso and told me he thought it was based on "A Young Woman at Her Toilette" (23A) by Rembrandt. The child in (23) fits nicely in the dark shadow

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