Modern Art, Day 22
25 March 2013
Picasso, Braque, and Cubism, Part II
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Hardest to make Cubist paintings of a person instead of a still life
Picasso, “Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler,” Fall 1910
 Never calls his paintings Composition 9 or something that would push it into the completely nonobjective abstract realm; the paintings aren’t based on their subject matter, but they still draw from that
Braque, “Violin and Pitcher,” 1910
 tries to reconnect Analytic Cubist painting to reality
illusionistic nail painted at the very top of the painting that has not been integrated into the Cubist blocks
Braque, “The Portuguese Waiter,” 1911 Picasso, “Ma Jolie,” Winter 1911-12
 used printed letters to flatten the painting, for decorative function, to designate the nominal content of
the picture, and sets in motion a period of experimentation with ways to affirm the flatness of the
surface; if you make an obvious acknowledgement of that, it frees you to make your subject matter less
fragmented and more recognizable
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use tall rectangular frame because these are portraits
Picasso, “Still Life with Chair Caning,” May 1912
Picasso, “Man with Hat,” 1912
 Make lots of allusions to contemporary culture, such as cafes, commercial products, and newspapers
Picasso, “Guitar,” 1912 (metal and wire sculpture)
 Picasso owned Grebo masks
 New process introduced with how you make sculpture; this is an assemblage rather than a modeled
manipulated medium like clay or marble
 subject matter is unimportant compared to typical sculptures which are monumental and meant to honor
someone or an event in history that was very important
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Picasso, “Glass of Absinthe,” 1914
Added a sugar strainer to this on
top
Cubist painting in sculpture form
wedge that juts out and hole in
sculpture mimics the effect of
light reflecting off the glass
dots are typical of this time period
Synthetic cubism: characterized
by resynthesizing of reality
solid planes of unmodeled color;
appear to be pieces of solid-color
construction paper pasted on top
of a canvas; appears this way
even when painted
sometimes mix 3D elements on
Synthetic cubist paintings, such
as sand
Picasso, “Harlequin,” 1915
 almost life-size
 Picasso did not volunteer to serve in the war but instead continued painting in a subdued way
 Harlequin was autobiographical figure for Picasso
 illusionistic elements such as light begin to become more expressive; eye and smile of the figure at the
top is kind of inhuman and unnaturalistic
 may reveal how unsettled he felt during the war or the fact that his mistress Eva was sick in the hospital
Picasso, “3 Musicians,” 1921
 large dog underneath table
 read the depth of the room
according to the receding wall
line on left; this is changed on
the right side