(H/B) THE SCULPTURES OF PICASSO

Παρουσίαση

Sculpture has received little attention in the vast amount of literature published on Picasso's career. It seems to be generally perceived as little more than the hobby of a brilliant artist. But I hold a very different view. The consuming passion that drove Pablo Picasso would not have tolerated a mere relaxing pastime: his poetry and theater design were an integral part of his work and of his very being, as much as his paintings, his sculptures, his engravings and his ceramics. It would be impossible to overestimate the importance of sculpture in Picasso's development. Sculpture was often seen as first stage, preceding painting, on which it subsequently exercised a profound influence. It seems perfectly reasonable that an undertaking to reinvent the sculptural inventory of the outside world -and this reinvention was in fact the original goal of cubism- would draw upon sculpture to compensate for the weaknesses of painting in rendering volume. Braque and Gris also made sculptures. Leger only made a single small bas-relief (Chariot), and this limited output is easily understood in the context of the specifically mural-like quality -the two-dimensional nature- of his art. From this group, Picasso alone created sculptures throughout his life; and he was the only artist whose whole development was determined by the simultaneous evolution of his painting and his sculpture. Unfortunately, I cannot comment here in detail on the dual nature of this development. I can only point out briefly the essential role that sculpture played in his art -particularly during the crucial period in which he formed the new aesthetic principles that transformed the sculptural arts. The small "Femme assise" raises no new issues. It comes from a group of sculptures executed in 1905. "L'Arlequin" -whose lower portion had Max Jacob as a model- and the "Femme accroupie" -executed in ceramic first, and then in bronze by Paco Durio- are just a few sculptural renditions of the era's state of mind. Artists were satisfied with the period's existing techniques, not yet questioning their usefulness because they still sufficed to accomplish their goals. In sculpture, these methods did not change much after Rodin, whose roughly textured surfaces can still be found in Picasso's early work. [...] (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Foreword - Diana Widmaier Picasso
Introduction - Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler
The sculptures
Captions