Gjon Mili—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
The little flowers
Maternity
The old beggar and a boy~~Period Bleu
Le Gourmet–Greedy little child–Periodo Azul
Today, we at johndanielbegg.com, are, in awe appropriate entertained, by the work of one of the world’s great men, Picasso. We are also chastened and bewildered by his own description of what has come to be called his Blue Period. At later reflecting that period, the great man had this to say about art:
Art Emanates From Pain and Sadness
Gosh, guys, we hope not all art, as we have late-later-life pretensions here in that direction and we are not fond of pain or sadness–at all. That said, this is not about us, this is about Picasso, now represented in some of our favorite selections, with requisite citations to follow, comme ca;
The poor ones at the seaside–Period Bleu
Picasso’s Blue Period
click here for illustrated version of this article
The Blue Period (1901-1904) has long been considered Picasso’s first true evolution as an artist in creating a manner of his own. Beginning with several paintings that memorialized the recent suicide of his friend Casagemas, the artist’s themes grew somber and dark, and he implemented a palette consisting almost exclusively of shades of blue. The monochromatic use of blue was fairly standard in symbolist painting in Western Europe, often related to representations of melancholy or hopelessness. The figures in his works were often depicted as Bohemian-type outcasts, which happened to be the life that Picasso was leading himself, poor and far away from his family. Some examples of his subjects included beggars, prostitutes, the disabled, circus performers as well as some of his penniless friends. The Blue Period dramatizes the artist as an outcast from society and the theme of this era in Picasso’s career owes much to the eighteen-nineties when the idea of the artist as l’homme maudit, happy and dissociated from ordinary life but superior to it, was created in Western Europe.
The nearly exclusive use of blue during this time period has never been satisfactorily explained but there have been many assumptions:
This period was triggered by the unfortunate fate of his best friend Casegemas who was rejected by a girl with whom he was infatuated, attempted to kill her and ultimately took his own life. Picasso stated, “It was thinking about Casagemas that got me started painting in blue.”
It was believed that Picasso was merely inspired (or uninspired depending on your take) by his living situation, as well as being unrecognized and in extreme poverty. One of his closest friends Sabartés wrote, “Picasso believed Art to [be] the son of Sadness and Suffering…that sadness lent itself to meditation and that suffering was fundamental to life…If we demand sincerity of an artist, we must remember that sincerity is not to be found outside the realm of grief.”
The use of blue has also been attributed to the fact that Picasso was too poor to buy any other colors as well his habit of working at night by lamplight.
Famous Psychologist Carl Jung once regarded this as evidence of incipient schizophrenia.
Picasso may have had some subconscious influences from Spanish religious paintings, which often depicted agonized martyrs with their waxen faces stained with tears and bodies streaked with blood.
It’s widely believed that the origins were much more complex and connected with Picasso’s artistic aims as blue was rich in associations and a favorite among many artists of the time. Picasso produced many famous works that are truly
indicative of his presumed meanings. Most historians and critics would agree that the key painting of this
time was La Vie. The work contains a deep sense of melancholy and has given rise to more mystification
than any other early work by this artist. Scholars agree that the painting is unmistakably allegorical and
scholars feel that this particular subject matter may be referencing the responsibilities of daily life, the incompatibility of sexual love, and the struggles behind artistic creativity. The pessimistic outlook is further captivated by the use of the cold, bleak, blue tones. An interesting subtopic is the fact that this artistic masterpiece was intended as a self-portrait. X-ray analysis reveals that the central figure was originally Picasso, further evidenced by the preliminary drawings created in preparation for the painting itself. The recent advancement of x-ray analysis is crucial in uncovering hidden intentions and original concepts of famous paintings of the past. This development in technology is further illustrated and highlights another famous work by Picasso during this time.
The Old Guitarist is another example of Picasso evoking portrayals of the impoverished underclass in a predominantly blue tone. Relatively recent advancements including x-radiographs and infrared reflectograms have allowed researchers at the Art Institute of Chicago find clues to both the origin and meaning of the underlying groundwork. Within some sketches and letters that Picasso had sent to friend before the completion of The Old Guitarist, certain hidden elements showed an uncanny resemblance to the ideas described and sketches drawn in those very letters. There were two main compositions that were discovered beneath the final draft of his masterpiece.
Through analysis, the first composition appears to feature a mother and child with the mother’s right arm extended behind the child, which matches up with one of the sketches in the letters. In addition, there are also heads of both a calf and a cow with the cow apparently
licking the calf’s head. This appears to be exactly what Picasso was describing in his letter but nobody
knows why he abandoned the initial painting even though the idea was worth mentioning to a friend.
In the second composition, a comparison between the hidden elements underneath The Old Guitarist
and a sketch that Picasso had just recently done was made. This pose of an imploring woman with outstretched arms can also be viewed from x-ray analysis. Scholars suggest that this particular composition was probably more closely linked to this drawing due to the obvious intent to depict an underclass citizen with a guitar.
Works Cited
Blunt, Anthony and Phoebe Pool. Picasso: The Formative Years. New York: New York
Graphic Society, 1962.
Richardson, John. A Life of Picasso: Volume 1 1881-1906. New York: Random House,
1991.
Internet Sources
Mood of a Painting <http://webexhibits.org/colorart/mood.html>
Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906 <http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/picbro.shtm>
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)<http://www.artchive.com/artchive/P/picasso_blue.html>
Revealing Picasso
<http://www.artic.edu/aic/conservation/revealingpicasso/arthistory.html>
Picasso was a short little fella, 5’4″, with a remarkable and unimaginably long name–even for the Spanish–you know–they want all their Saints covered to protect the young `ins!!
We will now close up today with a useful quickie biography with all our thanks to IMD mini-bios, citation to follow below:
Le Moulin de la Galette 1900
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2135561/William-Hogarth-Pablo-Picasso-The-greatest-works-art.html#ixzz2Qek5TuGk
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Date of Birth
25 October 1881, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain
Date of Death
8 April 1973, Mougins, Alpes-Maritimes, France (lung and heart failure)
Birth Name
Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispin Crispiniano de la Sentissima Trinidad Ruiz Blasco Picasso y Lopez
Height
5′ 4″ (1.63 m)
Mini Biography
Pablo Picasso, one of the most recognized figures of the 20th century art who co-created such styles as Cubism and Surrealism, was also among most innovative, influential, and prolific artists of all time.
He was born Pablo Ruiz Picasso on October 6, 1881, in Malaga, Spain. He was the first child of Jose Ruiz y Blasco and Maria Picasso y Lopez. His father was an artist and professor of art at the School of Fine Arts, and also a curator of museum in Malaga, Spain. Picasso began studying art under his father’s tutelage, continued at the Academy of Arts in Madrid for a year, and went on his ingenious explorations of the new horizons. He went to Paris in 1901 and found the environment conducive for his experiments with new art styles. Gertrude Stein, Guillaume Apollinaire, and André Breton were among his friends and collectors.
Constantly updating his style from the Blue Period, to the Rose Period, to the African-influenced Period, to Cubism, to Realism and Surrealism he was a pioneer with a hand in every art movement of the 20th century. He made some softer and neo-classic artworks during his cooperation with the Russian Ballet of Sergei Diaghilev in Paris. In 1917 Picasso joined the Russian Ballet on tour in Rome, Italy. There he fell in love with Olga Khokhlova, a classical ballerina from the Russian nobility (her father was a General to the Russian Tsar Nickolas II). Picasso painted Olga as a Spanish girl in his painting “Olga Khokhlova in Mantilla” to convince his parents for their blessing, and his idea worked. Picasso and Olga Khokhlova wed in Paris, in 1918, and had one son, Paolo. After their marriage, Olga’s high society lifestyle clashed with Picasso’s bohemian manners. They separated in 1935, but remained officially married until her death in 1954. Meanwhile, his most famous lovers, Marie Therese Walter and Dora Maar, were also his inspirational models for a series of experimental portraits.
Two Women Running on the Beach~~~The Race 1922
Read more: http://spreadlove.org/pablo-picasso-paintings/#ixzz2QgSPb8w5
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Picasso was a pacifist. His outcry for peace was expressed in large-scale painting Guernica (1937), created after the German bombing of this Spanish city. This powerful composition, showing the brutal inhumanity of war, became his most famous work and turned him into a political celebrity. In 1940 Picasso applied for French citizenship, but was denied it, and remained Spanish. Protected by his fame, he was untouchable even to the Nazis in the occupied Paris. A skillful self-promoter, he used politics, eccentricity, and provocation as a selling tool. Sarcastic harlequin and dominating minotaur were his personal symbols, frequently used in his artworks. His life turned into a PR campaign, playing with scandals; viciousness to his own children, exaggerated virility and beastly treatment of his women. However, he was forgiven by the public. Even his membership in the Communist party and his controversial comments about Joseph Stalin, who awarded Picasso the Stalin Prize for Peace in 1950, were ignored by his admirers. His life-long extraordinary artistic dialogue with Henri Matisse took a form of a “visual conversation” and exchange of their paintings with mutual respect. After WWII he returned to “classical” style and created the “Dove of Peace”.
An innovator and a multi-faceted personality, Picasso dominated the 20th century Western Art, spreading his influence beyond art into many aspects of culture and life. In his several film appearances Picasso always played himself. His lifestyle remained as bohemian and vivacious as it was in his youth. Picasso died in style while entertaining his guests at a dinner party, on April 8, 1973, in Mouglins, in southeastern France. Picasso’s last words were “Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink any more.” He was interred at Castle Vauvenargues’ park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhone, in the South of France.
Pablo Picasso’s paintings rank among the most expensive artwork in the world, establishing a price record with $104 million sale of “Garson a la pipe” in 2004. Picasso produced over 13 thousand paintings or designs, 100,000 prints and engravings, 34 thousand book illustrations and 300 sculptures, becoming the most prolific artist ever.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov
Intimacy familial
Periodo Azul
Garçon à la Pipe“1905–while, not technically, Periodo Azul, it sure fits the mood for us.
We very much doubt that Picasso ever heard the words of the Prime Minister at our caption. Nevertheless, we are sanguine that the painter would agree with that PM:
“Life is too short to be little.”
Motivated by burning desire for greatness, haunted day by day with rejection, near-starvation and despondence, Picasso swung for the bleachers and made of his life one of the most memorable home-runs of human history.
Never for Picasso was the middlin’ way–never for him mediocrity.
Be inspired!! All of us have in us the seeds of greatness placed there by Lord Jesus. Seek out the seeds. Do not let anyone tell you it is too late a week–even if he be the Bard himself in this tete a tete on aged dreams and giving up one’s aspirations:
Flowers in a vase
AS YOU LIKE IT
Act 2, Scene 3
ORLANDO
Comédie Humaine
October 29, 1941
Harrow School
When Churchill visited Harrow on October 29 to hear the traditional songs again, he discovered that an additional verse had been added to one of them. It ran:
“Not less we praise in darker days
The leader of our nation,
And Churchill’s name shall win acclaim
From each new generation.
For you have power in danger’s hour
Our freedom to defend, Sir!
Though long the fight we know that right
Will triumph in the end, Sir!
Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master’s kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs. The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world – ups and downs, misfortunes – but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home? Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up!
But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months – if it takes years – they do it.
Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must “…meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same.”
You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period – I am addressing myself to the School – surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.
Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.
You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honour, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter – I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: “Not less we praise in darker days.”
I have obtained the Head Master’s permission to alter darker to sterner. “Not less we praise in sterner days.”
Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.
Amen.
John Daniel Begg
At
Washington DC
Tuesday, 16th April, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
JOHN DANIEL BEGG 