Cubism and Early Modern Painting ................................................

Lecture 46

This lecture will cover a span of about 20 years at the beginning of the

20 th century and is principally about the innovations and achievements

of Picasso and Matisse in that critical period of their development. In a

period that was very rich in artistic exploration and diverse discoveries,

it remains true that these two men produced some of their ¿ nest

paintings during these years, and that they had a greater immediate

inÀ uence on other artists than most of their fellow artists.

P

ablo Picasso (1881–1973) was born in Malaga on the south coast
of Spain, the son of an art teacher. He was remarkably precocious,
mastering the Realistic style of painting that his father taught and
that was dominant in Spain at the time. The family had settled in Barcelona,
however, and the currents of new art À owing from France and northern
Europe soon reached that cosmopolitan city. Picasso began experimenting
with ideas found in the art of Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, and the Norwegian
Expressionist Edvard Munch, among others. He was also quite naturally
open to the Spanish culture in which he grew up. The Iberian peninsula
had a prehistoric art of stone carvings that Picasso was aware of, and it
had the imposing example of the golden age of Spanish art that we have
already studied.

Our ¿ rst example is The Old Guitarist (1903/1904), which Picasso painted
in Barcelona before he settled permanently in Paris. The elongated and
angular body has parallels in paintings by El Greco. Picasso accentuates the
distortions by squeezing the body into a narrow space and further stresses
the profound melancholy and despair of the picture with the pervasive blue,
the color chosen, of course, for its evocation of sorrow. There is elegance
and life in the guitarist’s hands, which together with the curves of the
warmer brown guitar, give needed contrast to the rest of the painting. The
perceived connection to El Greco and the Mannerist style of the 16th century
has sometimes led writers to call paintings of the Blue Period “Mannerist”
pictures. After the 17th century, El Greco’s reputation had faded, even in
Spain, but in the late 19th century, there was a revival of interest in him. The