Invention of the constructed sculpture essay

Picasso

Pablo Picasso was a painter, sculptor, ceramicist and stage designer who belonged to Spain but lived most of his life in France. He was one of the most influential and known artist of his age and had gone to achieve a lot of different things. Some of the most renowned achievements by Picasso include invention of the constructedsculpture; work on the collage, co founding the Cubist movement and introduction of various different styles of art. Seeing how his influence is appreciated worldwide, he is an interesting artist to look into in more detail. He was a man who made use of not one but several styles to blend in into his art work. His work was marvelous and people know his for the talent which he attained.

Pablo Picasso was born in the city of Malaga in Andalusia in Spain and he was the first child of the family. Both his mother and father were strictly Spanish which meant that Picasso was baptized to his family names of various relatives and saints. Picasso’sfather’s name was Don Rose Ruiz y Belasco and his mother’s name was Maria Picasso y Lopez. Picasso’s father was a painter who had a thing for drawing anything related to nature. His passion however resided in naturalisticdrawings of birdsand other animals that are hunted. Most of his life, Ruiz was a teacher at the School of Crafts and a curator at the museum in town. Needless to say, Pablo Picasso belonged to a middle class family.

From the early years, Picasso had a thing for drawing. Since he was in his early years of life he began to portray the talent he had been gifted with. When kids learn to speak the rarest thing you would have a mother tell you is that her child’s first words were pencil rather than something else. This shows how keen he was of art. He had this interested in visual things from his early days and he was not affair to go after what he liked. (Daix 5) Picasso had a very tight bond with his father Don Jose. Don Jose married really late about until he was forty and his marriage was quite arranged. Aftermarriage, the structure of his life change completely not because of his wife alone. His wife brought in her mother and two unmarried sisters that went on to rule the apartment life and have quite some control over Picasso’s upbringing as well. Picasso opened his eyes surrounded by his mother, aunts and his grandmother. Even though Don Jose was very good in his work, he still felt quite detached from his family. He had the looks of quite the Englishman with blond hair and blue eyes. Oddly enough, his son Picasso did not resemble him at all. (Daix 5)

Picasso’s relevance in the family became more pronounced when he became the only son of the family. After him, Picasso’s mother only gave birth to two sisters: Lola and Conchita. Picasso himself opted to be called Picasso and not Ruiz. A major reason Picasso’s interest developed in art and drawing was because of his father’sprofession. It is safe to assume that he not only inherited this gist to draw but developed it later only all due to this father’s support.

In his early years, Picasso insisted that Don Jose provide him with the things that the average child didn’t really consider crucial, but Picasso did. These things included brushes and drawing utensils. Even though Picasso was not a very good student from the beginning, he did show a lot of interest in Art. According to legend and relatives that have written down his life story in detail state that the first words of the child were “piz” This actually means pencil in Spanish. This showed that Picasso had the love for Art at a very small age. As mentioned before, Picasso’s father was the reason he became so inspired by art. His father taught him how to draw and paint and by the time Picasso was 13, his work was better than his father’s. Because he was so good in art, he lost all interest in school work and didn’teven used to spend time in school. He became notorious for doodling his notebook and not being a good student.

In 1985, Picasso applied to the city’s mosteligible school of art when the family moved to Barcelona. The school had a strict policy to not accept students up until a certain age. However, seeing Picasso’s work, they were very impressed and they took him in. Even though the school was quite extra ordinary, Picasso had a hard time following the strict guidelines of art and was always found roaming streets and sketching on his own. Sometime later when Picasso went to Madrid to attend the Royal Academy of San Fernando, he still faced the same problem. When in Madrid, he even wrote to his friend saying that the teachers and the school go on and repeat the same old stuff.

Around 1899, Picasso moved back to Barcelona and started mingling with a bunch of intellectuals and artist. These people made a headquarter in a cafe where they all used to meet and discuss their radical and rebellious ideas. In the meetings with the anarchists and rebellious artist, Picasso decided to break through the norms and traditions of art and start his journey of innovation and experimentation.

Around the twentieth century, Picasso moved to Paris and decided to make his own studio. Due to his vast input and efforts in the world of Art, Picasso’s entire Art carrier has been divided into periods with the first one being known as the Blue Period. This period last around 1901-1904 and is known Blue period due to the color being very prominent in most of his paintings.

This was a rather depressed and lonely time in the artist’s life has he close friend, Carlos Casagemas had passed away. Depressed over his death, Picasso resorted to making scenes of poverty, anguish and isolation with the color green and blue being quite prominent in his paintings. The most famous paintings from this ear include the old Guitarist, Blue Nude and La Vieand which were all completed in 1903. Within two years, the artist had overcome his depression and fell in love with a very gorgeous model named Fernande Olivier.

This affair was basically initiated due to the generous involvement of the dealer Ambrois Vollard. Fernande Olivier was basically a bohemian artist and she met Picasso in middle of storm. She is quite prominent in some of his paintings during the Rose period. Due to this love and Picasso overcoming depression, the tone and the colors of his paintings were changed quite a bit. In this period, he started using colors like reds, pinks and beiges. Due to this reason, the period was known as the Rose period. The most famous paintings of the time include Family at Saltimbanques, Two nudes and Gertrude Stein.

In 1907, Picasso went off to make a painting that changed the world of art before. This work known as the Les Demoiselles d’Avignonwas basically adepiction of five different figures that were abstracted and distorted. These figures which were actually prostitutes that were distorted with geometric figures and dark blotches of grays, blues and greens. This painting then went onto give a prelude for the cubism style ofpainting that was introduced by Pablo Picasso and Geroges Braque.

Cubism

Before we get into more details of cubism, it should be noted that many contemporary critics and writers solely knowledge Picassa as being the founder of the cubism movement.In cubism, paintings are basically broken apart and are re assembled into a certain form. From the year 1909 till 1912 was the period referred to as analytical cubism which is Picasso’s style of painting developed in collaboration with Georges Braque in which they made use of neutral as well as monochrome brown tones. What Picasso and Braque did in this style was that they took objects away from each other and subsequently analyzed then with reference to the shapes they were in. The paintings of these artists had quite a few similarities. Later in the year 1912-1919 additional advancement took place referred to as Synthetic cubism in which the paper fragments were cut. They then made out compositions and pasted them.

Most of the writers and critiques do go on to credit Picasso as being the pioneer of cubism paintings. (Golding 21) This had many contributions by Robert Delaunay and many other artists. Cubism basically altered the way European sculptures and painting was made. It was inspired by literature, architecture and music. Cubism went on to be so popular that it has been termed as the most influentialmovement in the 20th century. Cubism basically allowed artists to representtheir work in different angles. Gone were the days where they merely painted what they saw. With cubism, artists had to pay special attention to the angle, light and the direction of the patenting that they were making.

Classicism and surrealism

After the World War 1, neoclassical style of artwork was seen by Picasso. The paintings done by Picasso in this period were akin to the work done of Ingres and Raphael. It was in the 1930s when harlequin was substituted with minotaur. His utilization of minotaur was partially due to his connection with surrealists, who even now and then made use of it as their representation.

During the Spanish Civil War-Guernica the German bombing of Guernica was illustrated by Picasso and also was his most re-known work. In the New York’s museum of Modern Art for quite a few years Guernica was put on display. In 1981, the painting had been sent back to Spain and in the Cason del Buen Retiro was exhibited. When the Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum was opened in 1992 the painting was moved to this museum to be seen.

In mid-1949 Picasso exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the 3rd Sculpture International being one out of the other 250 sculptors who demonstrated their work. A year later, Picasso yet again had a change in his style of work. This time around he began to create reinterpretations of the great masters art; namely his painting Las Meninas. For Chicago, Picasso was asked to create a Marquette for a humungous public sculpture of 50 feet. That piece of art is named as Chicago Picasso and was revealed in 1967. He started off this project with a lot of enthusiasm and finished with a piece of art that is worth seeing as it is considered to be a landmark placed in downtown Chicago. For this piece of art, Picasso didn’t take the $100,000 and rather donated it to the city’s people.

The last works of Picasso demonstrated a blend of styles, during this phase he completely designated all his energy to the work he was finishing up. During his last pieces his work is seen to be more expressive and vibrant with lots of colors being used.

All through his life Picasso has produced outstanding and marvelous pieces of work which count to about 50,000. Out of these thousands of pieces were prints, 1,885 were paintings, 2880 ceramics, 1228 sculptures, round about 12,000 drawings and lots of rugs as well as tapestries. At his last stages of life a number of paintings done by him were kept under his ownership and he did not ever exhibit them neither had any intentions of selling it and making money out of it. Also, Picasso was a fan of quite a few other artists and had a number of artwork done by them in his possession.

Apart from creating a number of anti-war paintings he himself stayed pretty neutral all through World War I. but, during World War II he had aged and was going through his late fifties.Picasso had a lot of interest in politics and in the year 1944 became part of the French Communist Part. Also, in 1950 the Soviet government presented him with the Stalin Peace Prize. Picasso lived in France, as a Spanish citizen and could not take part in the World Wars against Germans. However, during the Spanish Civil War he performed services voluntarily. Picasso was a man of his own opinions; he didn’t care how others would get affected by his decisions. After he joined Communist party one of his friends who happened to be the surrealist poet; Andre Breton was upset and didn’t even want to shake hands with his old mate. Picasso was the achiever of Lenin Peace Prize, when he won in the year 1962.

Some of the most famous works of the artists include Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Guernica. Guernica was quite the scandalous and popular piece as it went on to depict the bombing of Guernica done by the Germans in the Spanish Civil War. When Picasso was painting the Guernica, he was reported to have strong sentiments about the Spanish freedom. He stated that the struggle is basically the reaction that people have against the freedom. He stated that everyone is in a continuous state of the struggle all the time. (Barr 12) Referring to himself that he himself has also experienced struggle as an artist in his lifetime. In the painting, he basically goes on to express his dislike for the military caste that causes so much damage to Spain.

Picasso has been quite influential in his life time. He was a public figure that the world admired and that the young artists looked up to. Even though he wasn’t of the best character to children or women, he still appeared charming to some women. First and foremost Picassocame out as a Symbolist influenced by Edvrd Munch and other rebellious artists. Due to this reason, he went on to make the blue period popular. As mentioned before, this was a rather depressive era as opposed to the rose period that he talked about. Experimenting and going around with his new techniques, Picasso came around the art of cubism. Regarding cubism, Picasso basically designed and sort of alerted the conventions of perspectival space. His innovations had such long-term effects that they have revolutionized art and attitudes concerning art in a big dimension. With the advent of cubism, collage came into being. Collage and its use truly changed the way art was made and is still being made now. In trying out the collage, he basically changed the idea that a picture is a depiction of an image. In other words, collage is more of an amalgamation of different designs and different objects. This arrangement and set of designs therefore set the stage for many different ideas to come. Picasso basically had a very different attitude and truly unique style. One thing that really stood out in his work was dominance. Picasso made sure that is style and his technique overpowered those of other artists. His work was so special and so personal that people could recognize that this is something made by Picasso.

The influence that Picasso had was quite far reaching and profound in his entire life. He was the pioneer of cubism and he set the stage forany further problems, approaches and devices to come. When Picasso was near the end of his career in the 1920s, his works merely revolved around the occupied Paris. He was pretty lucky when it came to Politics. During the Holocaust, Picasso made sure that his work did not go on to be insulted by the Nazis. Even the Nazi’s considered his work as the epitome of degenerate art. Many artists and writers were disgraced when they were thought to be linked to either fascism or Nazism. Regardless, Picassowent on to provide support to Joseph Stalin during the cold war against America.

The reason I chose Picasso was because he was not conformed to one single thing. He is a painter and sculptor and is known for more than just his art. This artist has shown talent and confidences since he was a teenager. He is an artist who was not afraid to try out what he wanted and he went with it even though many others were reluctant. When I think about Western Art, Picasso is the first person that comes to my mind. Before the famous artist had even turn 50, he dominated the place and had become more of a prototype than a public figure. Another reason I choose Picasso was because the quantity of audience that he had in his lifetime, no other artist had that. To give a fair estimate, the total amount of people for Velazquez in the 17th century or for Titan in the 16th century, were no more than some thousand people. However, Picasso has captured the hearts and the eyes of millions of people all around Europe. A person that would hear about his work would travel, discuss, analyze or rumor about his work to a bunch of other people. As mentioned before, Picasso wasn’t the kind to follow the traditional way of drawing. Possibly because of his unique ideas people went on to adore him and talk about him.

Picasso was the artist that everyartist in the future had some link with. His painting and his sculptures filled the world and went on to embed in different disciplines. All his work was inquire and it built upon the other. He provided the world with creativity, challenge and the desire to be different.

Works cited

BIO.”Pablo Picasso Biography.” 1940. Web. 29 Apr 2013. .

Daix, Pierre. Picasso. New York, N.Y.: Icon Editions, 1994. Print.

Golding, John. Cubism: A History and an Analysis, 1907-1944. London: Faber and Faber, 1959. Print.

Larrea, Juan and Walter Pach. Guernica, Pablo Picasso. New York: Arno Press, 1969. Print.

Pablopicasso.org. “Pablo Picasso – Picasso’s paintings, biography, quotes, sculptures.” 1901. Web. 29 Apr 2013. .