Heads, busts, still life and occasional landscapes form the subject matter of early Cubist painting. In the Seated Woman, of 1909, the individual forms - the characteristic swelling and distortion of the neck muscles, or the reduction of the eyes to trapezoids - are not derived from nature. Soft tans and olive tones prevail.
By 1911, in the phase known to art historians as Analytical Cubism, the tension has burst, and so has the object. The entire foreground is filled with its component planes, floating as if in a thick mist. The planes are no longer opaque; one seems to see through them, and a great deal of the effect of an Analytical Cubist picture is derived from the delicacy of the intersection of these planes. They are rendered with a divided touch recalling that of Impressionism. These planes build up a pyramidal structure, superseding the structure of observed reality.
Cubism rapidly became a common style. During 1912 the Cubist artists began to turn to a new series of interests and a new kind of experience, responsible for the phase known generally as Synthetic Cubism, since the painters no longer sought to disintegrate the object but to reassert it. In Synthetic Cubism the barrier between reality and representation is unexpectedly broken. Now bits of the real objects make their entrance into the picture: newspaper clippings, lengths of rope, etc. Picasso's The Bottle of Suze, of 1913, is an epitome to this Synthetic phase. Once established, the Cubist mode of vision and construction continued vital for many years. Every abstract current in abstract art during the period from the 1920s to the present owes a debt to Cubism. For the rest of his life Picasso continued to make use of Cubist forms and ideas.
During the years immediately after World War I, it is not possible to talk of "periods" in Picasso's work; two sharply different styles, superficially opposed, but in reality strongly related to each other, exist side by side. The gorgeous Three Musicians, of 1921, is a Synthetic Cubist picture in that the planes are, now locked into a total design, governed by the recognisable image. The three musicians are undoubtedly a Pierrot, a Harlequin and a Franciscan monk. The planes into which they have been divided proceed according to their own laws and not those of natural appearances. The colouring is as brilliant as that of any Fauve painting. Its hard clear tones together with the astonishing size create a splendid decorative effect.
In 1917 Picasso visited Italy. He was greatly impressed by the grandeur of the Italian past, especially Roman sculpture and the mural paintings of Giotto. Quite unexpectedly Picasso developed a monumental and largely monochromatic Classical style with complete figures heavily modelled as if they were statues. He experimented with every aspect of Classical style, but his most imposing Classical creations are the majestic compositions involving seated giantesses seeming to derive from a legendary past. In Three Women at the Spring, of 1921, Picasso has made the figures graceless, emphasising the bulk and weight of their hands and feet, and intensifying the impersonality of their stony faces. For several years this Classical style coexisted in Picasso's production with late Cubism.
Picasso's post-Cubist works are characterised by the lightning changes of styles. Sometimes incompatible styles appear side by side in the same painting. During the 1930s Picasso took an active part in the Surrealist movement. His best work of this decade, and the greatest of all social protest pictures is Guernica. Picasso executed this enormous painting to fulfil a commission for the pavilion of the Spanish republican government at the Paris Exposition of 1937, while the civil war was still going in Spain. Intended as a protest against the destruction of the little Basque town of Guernica in April 1937, by the Nazi bombers in the service of the Spanish Fascists, the picture has become in retrospect a memorial to all crimes against humanity in the twentieth century. As he worked, Picasso combined images drawn from Christian iconography with motives from Spanish folk culture, especially the bullfight, and from his own past. Actual destruction is reduced to fragmentary glimpses of walls and tiled roofs, and flames shooting from a burning house at the right. A bereft mother rushes screaming from the building, her arms thrown wide. Agonised heads and arms emerge from the wreckage. At the left a mother holding her dead child looks upward, shrieking. The merciless bull above her, is surely related to the dread Minotaur, adopted by the Surrealists, as an embodiment of the irrational in man. If the bull signifies the forces of Fascism, the dying horse suggests the torment of the Spanish people, and the oil lamp held above is the resistance of humanity against the mechanised eye, whose iris is a electric bulb. The spiritual message of combined terror and resistance is borne, unexpectedly, by the Cubist aesthetic means. An explosion of shattered planes of black, white, and grey reshapes itself as one watches into a giant pyramid, as if triumphant even in the destruction.
Picasso never again reached this height, and though he continued painting with great energy for 36 years, much of his work is a recapitulation of motives he had invented.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Picasso [piPk{sou]; Cubism [Pkjübizm]; wreckage [PrekidÆ], Toulouse-Lautrec [tuPlüz loPtrek]; synthetic [sinPïetik]; abstract [P{bstr{kt]; Pierrot [Ppi@r@u]; Harlequin [PhÓlikwin]; Franciscan [fr{nPsisk@n]; Minotaur [Pmain@tþ]; Dadaism [PdÓd@iz@m]; Basque [Pb{sk]; Spanish [Psp{niS]; France [frÓns]; absinthe [P{bsinï]; monk [Pmönk]; Guernica [Pgýnik@]; melancholy [Pmel@nk@li]
NOTES
Absinthe Drinker - "Любительница абсента"
Salimbanques - "Комедианты"
Les Demoiselles d 'Avignon - "Авиньонские девушки"
Seated Woman - "Сидящая женщина"
The Bottle ofSuze - "Бутылка "Сьюз"
Three Musicians - "Три музыканта"
Three Women at the Spring - "Три женщины у источника"
Guernica - "Герника"
TASKS
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. Picasso created one of the most important movements of the nineteenth century.
2. In Paris Picasso was influenced by Van Gogh's works of art.
3. During the Rose Period Picasso was concerned with the charm of circus performers.
4. Picasso invented Dadaism.
5. In 1917 Picasso was greatly impressed by the grandeur of the Italian past, especially Roman sculpture and the mural paintings of Giotto.
6. During the 1930s Picasso took an active part in the Neo-impressionist movement.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. What did Picasso paint in 1902? How is the figure depicted? What colour dominates in this painting? What does this colour mean?
2. What is one of the loveliest pictures of the twentieth century?
3. What heralds the beginning of Cubism? How are the figures depicted in this painting? In what way did Cezanne influence the development of Cubism? What forms dominate in the SeatedWoman? What phases are distinguished within Cubism? What are their peculiarities? How long did Cubism exist?
4. What is an epitome to the Synthetic phase of Cubism? What is a typical Synthetic Cubist picture? How are the figures depicted in this painting? How do the planes proceed? What style prevailed in Picasso's work during the years immediately after World War I?
5. What impressed Picasso when he was in Italy? What style did Picasso develop in 1921? What were the results of Picasso's experiments with the Classical style? How did Picasso make the figures? How long did this Classical style coexist with late Cubism in Picasso's production?
6. What artistic movement attracted Picasso during the 1930s? What is Picasso's best painting of this decade? What images did Picasso combine in this picture? How is the actual destruction pictured? What is depicted at the left? Where is the bull pictured? What symbols dominate in this painting? What do they mean? What is borne by the Cubist aesthetic means? How can Picasso's latest works be characterised?
III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:
to cast a shadow across the twentieth century; artistic activity; to fall under the influence of; a figure of extraordinary sculptural simplicity and beauty; the proverbial colour of melancholy; strolling players; to herald Cubism; the partially decomposed figures; to derive from nature; art historians; component planes; abstract current; the mural paintings; incompatible styles; to execute an enormous painting; to fulfil a commission; crimes against humanity; Christian iconography; motives from Spanish folk culture.
ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:
творческая деятельность; попасть под влияние; легендарный цвет печали; фигуры чрезвычайной скульптурной простоты и красоты; искусствоведы; сопутствующие планы; провозгласить кубизм; частично деформированные фигуры; христианская иконография; преступления против человечества; элементы испанской фольклорной культуры; движение абстракционистов; фрески; написать огромную картину.
iii. Make up questions of your own with the given phrases.
iv. Arrange the/allowing in the pairs of synonyms:
a) current; melancholy; aesthetic; mysterious; deserted; wreckage; fragmentary; epitome; to herald;
b) abandoned; smashed ruins; trend; broken; to proclaim; summary; sad; enigmatic; beautiful.
IV. Here are descriptions of some of Picasso's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.
1. This painting shows a family of the strolling players grouped together physically, but emotionally detached, before a mysterious desert landscape.
2. This picture is an epitome to the Synthetic Cubism.
3. This is the greatest of all social protest pictures.
4. Picasso has made the figures graceless, emphasising the bulk and weight of their hands and feet, and intensifying the impersonality of their stony faces.
5. The figures in the painting are a Pierrot, a Harlequin and a Franciscan monk.
6. This painting heralds the beginning of Cubism.
7. The individual forms - the characteristic swelling and distortion of the neck muscles or the reduction of the eyes to trapezoids -are not derived from nature.
8. The figure of extraordinary sculptural simplicity and beauty is enveloped in self-pity and helplessness.
a. Guernica
b. Three Musicians
c. Three Women at the Spring
d. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
e. The Bottle ofSuze
f. Seated Woman
g. Absinthe Drinker
h. Salimbanques
V. Translate the text into English.
Эволюция искусства XX века наиболее ярко выражена в творчестве Пабло Пикассо.
Родившись в 1881 г. в маленьком испанском городке Малага, Пикассо уже в 1901 г. в Париже открывает свою первую персональную выставку, чтобы стать на последующие семьдесят лет центральной фигурой в западноевропейском искусстве. Период с 1901 по 1907 г. принято называть в его творчестве соответственно "голубым" (1901-1904) и "розовым" (1905 -1906). Картины, посвященные нищим, странствующим актерам, бродягам, выражают настроение усталости и обреченности. Они написаны в сине-зеленой гамме. С 1905 г., хотя темы остаются прежними, пространство заполняется розовато-голубоватой или золотистой дымкой.
Полотном "Авиньонские девушки" (1907) Пикассо ознаменовал рождение кубизма. В картине "Три женщины у источника" художник обращается к реалистическим формам. Пикассо отдал дань и сюрреализму, создав ряд произведений, чудовищно деформировав реальный образ человека.
Панно под названием "Герника" стало настоящим событием мировой художественной жизни. Эта композиция связала искусство Пикассо с жизнью всех народов, борющихся с насилием. До конца жизни Пикассо стремился раскрыть новые возможности искусства.
VI. Summarize the text.
VII. Topics for discussion.
1. Picasso's Blue and Rose periods.
2. Picasso's period of Cubism.
3. Picasso's paintings of social protest.
4. Picasso as the greatest artist of the XX-th century.
UNIT XIX SALVADOR DALI (1904-1989)
Salvador Dali typifies in his art the Surrealist movement at its height in the 1930s. After his visit to Paris in 1928 Dali experimented briefly with semi-abstract forms, as he was then under the influence of Picasso. Soon Dali set out on his individual path, based on his study of Freud, which seemed to clarify to him his personal fantasies and obsessions. Dali began producing what he called "hand-coloured photographs of the subconscious." His desire to "materialise images of concrete irrationality with the utmost imperialist fury of precision" resulted in pictures of a quality and brilliance that cannot be ignored, done in bright colour, with an exactitude of statement that at times recalls less his idols Vermeer and Velazquez than the technique of the Netherlandish masters of the fifteenth century. Dali's terrifying images are always brought home with tremendous force by the magical virtuosity of his draughtsmanship and colour.
The Persistence of Memory, of 1931, is one of Dali's most striking and best-known early Surrealist paintings. Dali said the idea for the work occurred to him while he was eating ripe Cam-embert cheese. The "wet watches", as they were termed by the astonished, horrified and fascinated New York public when the picture was first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, are disturbing in their destruction of the very idea of time. Three watches lie or hang limply, and the fourth is devoured by ants while a severed chinless head - its tongue hanging from its nose, its enormous eyelashes extended on its cheeks - lies equally limp on a barren plain. In the background, rendered with hallucinatory clarity, are the rocky cliffs of a Catalan bay.
A contrast to this small picture is the larger and overpowering Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War, painted in 1936. Monstrous fragments of humans - arms, a breast being squeezed by a clawlike hand, a convulsed and screaming head - tower against a desolate sky partly covered with filmy clouds. The rocky terrain in the foreground pullulates with beans, while above one clenched fist a tiny bearded man gazes disconsolately at the scene. One of the most frightful images in the entire history of art, this picture is nonetheless, endowed by Dali's astonishing skill with an unexpected and terrible beauty.
After considerable activity in the fields of stage design, jewellery design, and even shop window decoration, Dali moved to Christian art. His technique is brilliant and his fantasy is magical.