Profile of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso

(born October 25, 1881, Málaga, Spain—died April 8, 1973, Mougins, France) Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century and the creator (with Georges Braque) of Cubism.

The enormous body of Picasso's work remains, and the legend lives on—a tribute to the vitality of the “disquieting” Spaniard with the “sombre . . . piercing” eyes who superstitiously believed that work would keep him alive. For nearly 80 of his 91 years Picasso devoted himself to an artistic production that contributed significantly to and paralleled the whole development of modern art in the 20th century.

Life and career

Early years

Pablo Picasso was the son of José Ruiz Blasco, a professor of drawing, and Maria Picasso López. His unusual adeptness for drawing began to manifest itself early, around the age of 10, when he became his father's pupil in La Coruña, where the family moved in 1891. From that point his ability to experiment with what he learned and to develop new expressive means quickly allowed him to surpass his father's abilities. In La Coruña his father shifted his own ambitions to those of his son, providing him with models and support for his first exhibition there at the age of 13.

The family moved to Barcelona in the autumn of 1895, and Pablo entered the local art academy (La Llotja), where his father had assumed his last post as professor of drawing. The family hoped that their son would achieve success as an academic painter, and in 1897 his eventual fame in Spain seemed assured; in that year his painting Science and Charity, for which his father modeled for the doctor, was awarded an honorable mention in Madrid at the Fine Arts Exhibition.

The Spanish capital was the obvious next stop for the young artist intent on gaining recognition and fulfilling family expectations. Pablo Ruiz duly set off for Madrid in the autumn of 1897 and entered the Royal Academy of San Fernando. But finding the teaching there stupid, he increasingly spent his time recording life around him, in the cafés, on the streets, in the brothels, and in the Prado, where he discovered Spanish painting. He wrote: “The Museum of paintings is beautiful. Velázquez first class; from El Greco some magnificent heads, Murillo does not convince me in every one of his pictures.” Works by these and other artists would capture Picasso's imagination at different times during his long career. Goya, for instance, was an artist whose works Picasso copied in the Prado in 1898 (a portrait of the bullfighter Pepe Illo and the drawing for one of the Caprichos, Bien tirada está, which shows a Celestina [procuress] checking a young maja's stockings). These same characters reappear in his late work—Pepe Illo in a series of engravings (1957) and Celestina as a kind of voyeuristic self-portrait, especially in the series of etchings and engravings known as Suite 347(1968).

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon, and originally titled The Brothel of Avignon)[2] is a large oil painting of 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). The work portrays five nude femaleprostitutes from a brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó (Avinyó Street) in Barcelona. Each figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none are conventionally feminine. The women appear as slightly menacing and rendered with angular and disjointed body shapes. Two are shown with African mask-like faces and three more with faces in the Iberian style of Picasso's native Spain, giving them a savage aura. In this adaptation of Primitivism and abandonment of perspective in favor of a flat, two-dimensional picture plane, Picasso makes a radical departure from traditional European painting. The work is widely considered to be seminal in the early development of both cubismand modern art. Demoiselles was revolutionary and controversial, and led to wide anger and disagreement, even amongst his closest associates and friends.

Painted in Paris during the summer of 1907, Picasso had created hundreds of sketches and studies in preparation for the final work.[3][4] He long acknowledged the importance of Spanish art and Iberian sculpture as influences on the painting. The work is believed by critics to be influenced by African tribal masks and the art of Oceania, although Picasso denied the connection; many art historians remain skeptical about his denials. Several experts maintain that, at the very least, Picasso visited the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro (known today as Musée de l'Homme) in the spring of 1907 where he saw and was unconsciously influenced by African and Tribal art several months before completing Demoiselles.[5][6] Some critics argue that the painting was a reaction to Henri Matisse's Le bonheur de vivre and Blue Nude.[7]

Its resemblance to Cézanne's Les Grandes Baigneuses, Paul Gauguin's statue Oviri and El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal has been widely discussed by later critics. At the time of its first exhibition in 1916, the painting was deemed immoral. In the nine years since its creation, Picasso had always referred to it as Le Bordel d'Avignon, but art critic André Salmon, who managed its first exposition, retitled it Les Demoiselles d'Avignon to lessen its scandalous impact on the public.[2][3] Picasso never liked Salmon's title, and as an edulcoration would have preferredlas chicas de Avignon instead.[2]

Guernica
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican government commissioned Picasso to create a largemural for the Spanish display at the Paris International Exposition at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.

Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.

Colour Fading in Van Gogh

Quite often it is sheer luck that allows us to confirm an in­tuition by carrying out proper research in order to enlarge our knowledge of an artist's materials. In 1967, a collector brought a painting by Van Gogh to the Kunstmuseum of Basel. The author, who at that time was chief restorer of that institution, found himself confronted with a painting that suggested colour changes. The question was, were they due to a correction on the part of the artist, or to discolour­ation?

The painting was one of the two versions of Two Children, which Van Gogh painted at Auvers-sur-Oise in June 1890. The problem was as follows. The original painted canvas had been folded over the right and left edges of the stretcher and attached with tacks in the same way as the unpainted tacking edges of the canvas at the top and bottom of the stretcher. As a result, the width of the painting had been reduced by approximately 2,5 cm on each side.

The background colour was mainly of different tonalities of blue in the upper part, and of shades of white in the low­er area; whereas the two painted strips folded over the edge of the stretcher were of a violet colour at the top and pink at the bottom. Was this change caused by discolouration, or the result of an overpaint applied by the artist? A closer examination with a binocular microscope showed a continuity in the ridges left by the brushstrokes that passed over the edge of the stretcher, even where they systematically changed from light-blue to violet and from white to pink immediately after passing over the angle of the stretcher. This ruled out the possibility of an overpaint.

A few minute particles of the paint layer could be taken at the losses and cracks that had occurred on the angle of the stretcher and near the tacks," Microscopic examination of cross-sections of these samples confirmed the presumption that discolouration had occurred. Near the surface, where the pink layer had been exposed to light, the colour had faded; whereas in the depth of the same layer, the colour still had its original brightness. And where the pink had not been exposed to light, i.e. on the edges of the stretcher or under a layer of another colour, it had re­tained all its original intensity, right up to the top.

Chemical analysis by Dr Muhlethaler revealed that the colour in question was an eosine-based lake." Eosine is a colour first made in Paris in 1871 and prepared as an artist's pigment some years later. One of the many names it had been given was 'geranium lake'. It is known from Van Gogh's letters that he used this colour quite frequently?

The findings of the technical analysis of the Two Children confirm that the painting originally had a pink component in its background which has since faded. More precisely, the lower area of the background was pink, and the thatched cottages above were violet. This observation seemed to be of some considerable significance for our knowledge of Van Gogh's oeuvre, but because the fading had only been demonstrated in a single painting, the author confined himself to an oral communication during the 1967 meeting in Brussels of the lCOM Committee for Conservation.

Many years later, this assertion was confirmed by obser­vations made at an exhibition in May 1988 organised by the Kunstmuseum of Olten, Switzerland, on the influence of Van Gogh on Swiss art," Among the exhibits were three copies of our version of the Two Children: one in water­colour on paper (23 x 22.5 cm) by Giovanni Giacometti, and two others in oil on canvas (51 x 46 cm, and 52 x 46 cm) by Cuno Amiet. Both artists, who were born in the same year (1868), were enthusiastic about avant­garde art, and about Van Gogh in particular, whom they considered a leader. The extraordinary opportunity to ex­amine an original by the great master was given to them in 1907 by their friend Richard Kisling, the art collector and hardware dealer from Zurich. Perhaps acting on the advice of his painter friends, Kisling had just acquired the Two Children for 2,000 francs. This was the first painting by Van Gogh to be exhibited in Switzerland. It was left on loan at the studio of the two artists for one year to enable them to study it closely. In their shared studio at Oschwand near Bern, they not only studied it, but also made several copies, including those that were shown at the Olten exhibition.

Both copies by Amiet are the same size as the Van Gogh original was when it was brought to the Basel Kunst­museum in 1967 Amiet's copies measure 51 x 46 cm and 52 x 46 cm, Van Gogh's painting 51.5 x 46.5 cm. The latter was obviously the model for the copies. It was therefore perfectly logical to deduce that the Van Gogh painting had been mounted onto a smaller stretcher before 1907, the date of its purchase by Richard Kisling. By the time Amiet made his copy, the pink in The Two Children had already begun 

its fading process. The nuances Amiet so faithfully copied can tell us about on the state of Van Gogh picture at the time. It is very likely that Amiet did not use geranium lake but another colour that was more resistant to light.

Colour Fading in Van Gogh and Gauguin

One is aware that painting materials evolve with time. They take on an appearance which is specific to the pigments and techniques used in the various epochs. The relationship within the tonalities change, and some pigments are subject to environmental influences, especially the effect of light.

Artists of the Gothic period and the Renaissance used colours whose stability had already been ascertained and, thanks to long workshop experience, they chose them in accordance with the medium in which they wished to bind them. They were also aware of their specific properties, for instance their resistance to various ambient influences. The present condition of these paintings testifies to the excellen­ce of the techniques employed by these artists.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the pro­portion of drying oils in the medium gradually increased, materials underwent a new type of aging. This process usu­ally induced darkening. Twentieth-century observers are so accustomed to this darkened appearance that even famous experts, art historians or specialists could be misled as to the artist's true intentions.

This calls to mind the curses pronounced against the restoration of the Sistine Chapel: the darkening of Michelangelo's frescos was not due to any change within the paint material itself, but to the soot and other deposits from the burning of candles and similar sources of pollution not to mention some unfortunate former conservation treatments. This superficial accumulation of grime has given the fresco a misleading appearance similar to that of oil paintings of-the same period. The fresco is still in a good condition, apart from limited losses in the plaster. The freshness of the fresco. colours recovered after the recent cleaning gives one an idea of how bright and luminous contemporary oil paintings must have been .

A other example of colour alteration is illustrated by the Tintoretto fragment of three red apples and green leaves, discovered by chance during the 1905 restoration in the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice. The fragment was part of a frieze with the heraldic arms of the great schools, and putti holding garlands of flowers. and fruit, and had been pro­tected from light and pollution by being folded under another part of the frieze. The colours had remained un­altered, and retained their original intensity.

Reading about painting conservation, one is too often told about paintings that have been brought back to their original freshness, as though they had just come from the artist's studio. This illusion comes from a misunderstanding of the inevitable impact of time on the materials that consti­tute works of art. It is necessary to have a profound knowl­edge of a painter's technique in order to get an idea of his vision at the moment of creation. Equally essential is the historical knowledge concerning the artist's intent, in order to be aware of the chromatic change of his paintings.

Generations of scholars have studied the works of the past, examining arid comparing them, and have arrived at conclusions that are well known to us today. Yet we have far less information about works executed in the last 100 or 150 years, which does not mean that they have been less subject to change. We often wonder, for instance, if certain colours have not faded a phenomenon that is well known in watercolours and tapestries. Jean Leymarie, who studied Van Gogh's oeuvre in depth, mentioned a strong alteration of certain chrome yellows, but to the author's knowledge there has as yet been no specific documentation of such a change of chrome yellow in Van Gogh's work.

Profile of Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin

Paul (Eugéne-Henri) Gauguin was born on June 7, 1848 in Paris. Gauguin is considered one of the leading painters of the Postimpressionist period.

In 1849 his jounalist father's political activities forced the family into exile. The Gauguin family set off for Peru. His father died during the crossing from France. Gauguin's mother, of Peruvian descent on her mother's side, and her two children moved in with a great grand uncle and his family in Lima.

At the age of 17 Gauguin joined the French merchant navy, travelling around the world for six years. After the death of his mother in 1867, he settled down with his wealthy guardian, Gustave Arosa, who had a large art collection that included works by Delacroix. This period in time shaped Gauguin's interest in the arts. He started collecting Impressionist paintings, and became an amateur painter.

Gauguin began his career as a stockbroker in Paris in 1872. He attended the Impressionist's first exhibition in 1874, and was captivated by the impressionist style. He purchased works by Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and others. His exposure to the Impressionists reinforced his desire to become a painter.

In 1883 the bank that employed Gauguin experienced financial difficulties, and he found himself free to paint full-time. Much of his work during this period was influenced by the Impressionists, especially Pissarro. In 1884 Gauguin went to paint at the artists haven of Pont-Aven. Influenced during this period by van Gogh, Seurat, and Degas, he began to adopt his own independent style.

In 1887, Gauguin left France for Panama. For a short time he worked as a labourer for the Panama Canal Company. He soon left Panama for Martinique, where he continued his development as an artist. In 1888 he returned to Brittany. His experience in Martinique broadened his vision and enabled him to develop original interpretations of scenes in Brittany.

In October, 1888 he travelled to Vincent van Gogh's home in Arles, France. His stay was both traumatic and fruitfull for both artists. They learned a great deal from each other but were often at odds. Gauguin returned to Paris in December after Van Gogh's "ear incident."

Gauguin's break with the Impressionists came when he painted "Vision after the Sermon," where he tried to depict the inner feelings of his subjects. This painting also marked the start of a new painting style that came to be known as "Symbolism."

Although this period had been highly productive for Gauguin, he was deeply depressed and in 1891 abandoned his family to seek an idyllic life in the South Pacific Islands. He stayed briefly in Tahiti's capital, Papeete, and then relocated to a remote part of the island.

He lived in Tahiti from 1891 to 1893, and again from 1895 until his death. In Tahiti his painting style evolved to reflect the Pacific Islands' primitive forms and brilliant colors. His striking images of Polynesian women rank among the most beautiful paintings of the modern age. On May 9th, 1903, Gauguin, dissipated by drug-addiction, died of a heart attack on Hiva Oa Island in the Marquesas in French Polynesia.

Nude study
or Suzanne sewing
1881
Ny Carlsberg-Glyptotek
Copenhague, Danmark

In April 1887, he embarks with the painter Charles Laval for Panama, from where he will gain Martinique.

He lived there from June to October in a hut on a plantation, within 2 kilometers from Saint-Pierre.

Tropical vegetation, Martinique

Profile of Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh

Fast Facts

Birth: 30 March 1853
Death: 29 July 1890 (aged 37)
Background: Dutch - The Netherlands
Brother: Theo Van Gogh
Van Gogh's works are some of the most expensive in the world, but during his lifetime, he only sold one painting.

Influences Today

• Rap artist Tupac Shakur created a poem and turned it into a rap song called "Starry Night", dedicated to Vincent Van Gogh.
• Don McLean wrote a song called "Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)". It has also been covered by singer Josh Groban. It is said that this song was played to rapper Tupac on his deathbed by his mother.

What art movement is he associated with?
Van Gogh was a leader in the art movement Expressionism, which consists of distorting reality for emotional effect. His most famous paintings show that his brushstrokes are very wild, symbolic and have intense colour. The flow of the brush's movements produce a swirly effect which lets the viewer see the collective emotion in the scene.


How did he develop his signature style?
Vincent joined his brother and best friend Theo in Paris, the manager of an art gallery. There Van Gogh studied with Cormon and met artists such as Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin. He started to lighten his colours and painted in short brushstrokes like the Impressionists. He and his friend Paul Gauguin often painted together. 




What other occupations did he have?
The son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence. He worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an art salesman, and a preacher in the Borinage, Belgium (where he was fired for being overzealous). He stayed in Belgium and during his early period, he made a few paintings such as the The Potato Eaters. These early works are sombre, sharply-lit and more generic.

Why did he cut off his ear?
Well, Van Gogh was good friends with another famous artist named Paul Gauguin in France. However, their relationship was deteriorating and they quarrelled fiercely about art. Van Gogh became paranoid that Gauguin was going to desert him. This excessive tension reached its climax when Van Gogh chased Gauguin with a razor, but then cut his own ear off (the lower part of his left ear lobe). He wrapped this in newspaper and gave it to a prostitute named Rachel at the local brothel, telling her to keep the object carefully. Needless to say, Gauguin left and never saw Van Gogh again, even though he told his brother Theo he wanted to see him and thought about him all the time.

Did he really go crazy?
Yes. After cutting off his own ear and being hospitalized in critical condition, he spent the following month back and forth between his home and the hospital. He suffered from hallucinations and paranoia that he was being poisoned. The police closed his house after a petition by thirty citizens who called him the fou roux, "the crazy redheaded man". He committed himself to a mental hospital called Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in a former monastery.

Where did he paint The Starry Night?
During his stay in the mental hospital. At this time some of his work was characterised by his signature swirls. There, the clinic and its garden became his main subject. Due to the shortage of subject matter beyond his supervised walks outside, he painted interpretations of his previous student Millet's paintings, as well as his own earlier work. Van Gogh actually wasn't not satisfied with this painting, but today it is one of his most famous paintings.

Starry Night

Who was Dr. Gachet?
After the clinic, Van Gogh often saw the physician Dr. Gachet. Van Gogh's first impression was that Gachet was "sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much." Van Gogh painted a couple portraits of him and his Portrait of Dr. Gachet today has been sold for $82.5 million U.S.

Dr. Gachet

How did Van Gogh kill himself?
Van Gogh's depression deepened, and on 27 July 1890, at age 37, he walked into the fields and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died in his bed two days later. Theo rushed to be by his side and reported his last words as "La tristesse durera toujours" (French for "the sadness will last forever").

Irises

This was was one of his first works while he was at the asylum. There is a lack of the high tension which is seen in his later works. He called the painting "the lightning conductor for my illness", because he felt that he could keep himself from going insane by continuing to paint. The painting was influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, like many of his works and those by other artists of the time. The similarities occur with strong outlines, unusual angles, including close-up views and also flattish local colour. In 1987, it became the most expensive painting ever sold - for $54 million to Alan Bond, but he could not afford it and it had to be re-sold.

Cafe Terrace at Night

He painted this street cafe in Arles, France. Today, the cafe has become so popular because of this painting that the cafe has been named Cafe Van Gogh, seen here on the right.

This is the first painting in which he used starry backgrounds. He later used this starry technique for Starry Night and Starry Night Over the Rhone.

Sunflowers

Van Gogh made numerous oil paintings on canvas of Sunflowers and other still life objects. These series are quite famous. New technology for inventing pigments allowed for new possible colours, and the use of the yellow spectrum here was considered innovative at the time. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh wrote saying "the sunflower is mine in a way".