Undeniable Sunday Comics: The Perils of Picasso Part I

Sunday, October 15, 2006

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4 Comments:

Blogger Edward Hansen said...

Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisma Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (Funny long name) was born in Málaga, Spain, the first child of José Ruiz y Blasco and María Picasso y López.

Picasso's father was Jose Ruíz, a painter whose specialty was the naturalistic depiction of birds, and who for most of his life was also a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. The young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age; according to his mother, his first word was "piz," a shortening of lapiz, the Spanish word for pencil. It was from his father that Picasso had his first formal academic art training, such as figure drawing and painting in oil. Although Picasso attended carpenter schools throughout his childhood, often those where his father taught, he never finished his college-level course of study at the Academy of Arts (Academia de San Fernando) in Madrid, leaving after less than a year.

Picasso used harlequins in many of his early works, especially in his Blue and Rose Periods. A comedic character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, the harlequin became a personal symbol for Picasso. During the 1930s, the minotaur replaced the harlequin as a motif which he used often in his work. His use of the minotaur came partly from his contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol, and appears in Picasso's Guernica.

Blue Period (1901–1904), consisting of somber, blue paintings influenced by a trip through Spain and the recent suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas, often featuring depictions of acrobats, harlequins, prostitutes, beggars and other artists.
Rose Period (1905–1907), characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink colors, and again featuring many harlequins. He met Fernande Olivier, a model for sculptors and artists, in Paris at this time, and many of these paintings are influenced by his warm relationship with her, in addition to his exposure to French painting.
African-influenced Period (1908–1909), influenced by the two figures on the right in his painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which were themselves inspired by African artifacts.
Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), a style of painting he developed along with Braque using monochrome brownish colours, where they took apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque's paintings at this time are very similar to each other.
Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), in which cut paper—often wallpaper or fragments of newspaper—are pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art.

7:33 AM  
Blogger nepawoods said...

... and the guy with the two-by-four was none other than ... you geussed it, that ne'er-do-well Benjamin Franklin.

8:02 AM  
Blogger notpj said...

edward hansen, EXCELLENT copy-pasting (without proper attribution) of materials from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso

9:17 AM  
Blogger grillermo said...

hahaha, i can't believe there are still people trying to prove you wrong
it is obvious that they put picasso's eyes in the wrong direction

6:30 PM  

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