The Visual Grammar of Pablo Picasso by Enrique Mallen

Enrique Allen's The Visual Grammar of Pablo Picasso book is available at the UCSB Arts Library and can be searched for in the library catalog. In the introduction to his book, Mallen writes about Picasso’s approach to art and his relationship with primitivism. He explains Picasso’s interest in primitivism as an attempt to connect with art “at its origins.” “Picasso wanted to eliminate the…conventions of western tradition in order to concentrate on the deeper aesthetic principles. He determined that art, at its origins, was capable of an expressive force…” (Mallen 2). The expressive force that art possesses interested Picasso, as did the relationship between form and space.

 Thus primitivism was a sanctuary for Picasso. He looked to the art of past cultures for inspiration because he felt it provided more direct connections with aesthetic values themselves and focused less on the pictorial representations of these aesthetic values. Mallen suggests that visits to Iberian sculpture exhibits at the Louvre might have stimulated Picasso’s return to values present in primitive art. He exchanged qualities such as symmetry and overall appearance for abstraction and distortion of forms. The emphasis of his work was on structure and essential qualities of his figures, a technique he borrowed from the primitive.

 Mallen references Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon throughout the introduction as an example of his primitive technique.

Picasso did not pretend that his approach was revolutionary, or even that Cubism was; he advocated for the return of primitivism as means of breaking away from the set conventions of imitative art.

Sources:

Mallén, Enrique. The visual grammar of Pablo Picasso / New York : Peter Lang, c2003.

Arts Library/Art, General Collection N6853.P5 M337 2004

Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso, 1907

Image source: http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A4609&page_number=32&template_id=1&sort_order=1

Picasso Speaks

“I would like to know if anyone has ever seen a natural work of art…Through art we express our conception of what nature is not…from the painters of the origins, the primitives, whose work is obviously different from nature, down to those artists who, like David, Ingres, and even Bouguereau, believed in painting nature as it is, art has always been art and not nature…Cubism is no different from any other school of painting.”

 –Picasso in “Picasso Speaks” from Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas

Picasso defends his school of painting by describing art, in all forms, as contrary to nature. He references “the primitives” in the quote above to enhance his argument that Cubism is not revolutionary in painting “what nature is not.” From this I see a tie between Picasso and the primitive— by stating that art, from the beginning, has been anything but natural, he suggests that primitive influence has outlasted time and continues to guide painters, such as himself, in modern times. He shares common ground with the primitive, and perhaps it is for that reason that he reaches back to it in his creations. 

An Introduction to Picasso and Primitivism - Sienna van Alphen

An introduction to Picasso and Primitivism - Sienna van Alphen

Primitivism is a movement in art that reflects the non-Western way of life. It was a stand against bourgeois and an alternative for academic art and traditions.  Pablo Picasso was one of the many artists interested in primitivism during the 20^th century.  He was first influenced by the pre-Roman Iberians. Many of Picasso’s paintings emphasized primitivism through African and Iberian sculpture as well as African traditional masks. 

         One of Picasso’s most famous works is Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.  This masterpiece shows the primitive mind frame Picasso had been so intrigued with.  In an article from the Museum of Modern Art in New York by James Voorhies, describes the distinct connection between African art and Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.  One can clearly see the resemblance of the figures faces to African masks as well as the figures arrangement being very similar to Cézanne’s The Bathers, which was also influenced by primitivism. Picasso’s many paintings and sculptures in the primitive style influenced the cubism that appeared in his later artworks.    

Sources:

Voorhies, James. "Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pica/hd_pica.htm (October 2004)

Staller, Natasha. A Sum of Destructions: Picasso's Cultures and the Creation of Cubism. New York: Artists' Rights Society, 2001. Print.

Coincidental, Not Casual

            In my academic endeavor to discover the exact nature of Primitive influence on Picasso I came across a 1968 LIFE article titled, The Adventure of Cubism Began with a Shocker, by Tom Prideaux. I was interested to understand the popular perception of Picasso and his influence on cubism in hopes of finding the roots of his primitive influence. The article was extensive and intriguing. Overall, it was exploring Picasso and his influence on cubism, focusing on Demoiselles D'Avignon, more specifically the squatting female figure in the painting, as the start to the Cubist movement (53). This is a commonly held belief I have come across in several classes and readings. But it was one fact in the article that caught my attention from the beginning, the small bit of information that Picasso had visited a Cezanne exhibition shortly before starting Demoiselles D'Avignon and was particularly impressed by Cezanne’s Bathers (51). Apparently, Picasso looked to Cezanne’s work extensively to create this style called “cubism”. It was also noted in the article that Picasso was unable to pin point a specific instance where he was exposed to and influenced by primitive art (52).

The article, Biography becomes form: William Rubin, Pablo Picasso, and the subject of art history, argues the main point of the LIFE article, pointing out that the famed art historian, William Rubin, believed that the beginning of cubism began with Cezanne, not Picasso (128). Rubin also denounces the idea that Picasso’s experience at Trocadero, or Primitivism as a whole, directly influenced Picasso or the course of modern art.  Rubin said, “As we shall see, the changes in modern art were already underway when vanguard artists first became aware of tribal art. In fact, they became interested in and began to collect Primitive objects only because their own explorations had suddenly made such objects relevant to their work. At the outset, then, the interest in tribal sculpture constituted an elective affinity” (131). He believes the intersection between primitive art and modern artists was coincidental, not casual. Picasso confirms this notion in his statement, “The African sculptures that hang around ... my studios are more witnesses than models”(131).

 Rubin nor Picasso himself admit to a direct Primitive influence in his art. The fact that other Modern artists such as Matisse, Derain, and Vlaminck discovered African art prior to Picasso in conjunction with the knowledge of Cezanne’s immense influence on Picasso, leads me to believe that Primitive art did not cause Picasso’s work to be as they are, instead he was influenced by the contemporary trend (131). The Primitive did influence Picasso’s work but this article notes that it was a side effect, not an intentional representation of the Primitive or primitive art. Had Picasso not been exposed to the tribal art at Trocadero or his friends esteemed collections, his art would have followed a similar path (yet not exactly the same of course). I believe he gained more influence from other artists such as Cezanne, Matisse, Derain, and Vlaminck than the tribal masks in his office. Therefore, yes, Picasso was influenced by the Primitive, however, he did not seek out to actively incorporate the ideas of primitive artwork into pieces. He had a vision prior to his exposure to Oceanic and African art, it just so happens that the fundamental ideas of primal art coincided with his personal innovative vision. 

Tom, Prideaux. "The Adventures of Cubism Began with a Shocker." LIFE. 27 1968: 49-62. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. <http://books.google.com/books?id=rlIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=when was picasso exposed to primitive&source=bl&ots=SboqMAiG3O&sig=r5g8kgmSXPS8RRVHX2ZBnBxryAA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=g35_UMa-B6e7iwKl8YCgCA&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBQ>.

D'Souza, Aruna. "Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry." Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry. 18.3 (2002): 126-136. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02666286.2002.10404983>.

Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon

     Steefel explores the almost exclusively ignored bowl of fruit in one of Picasso's most famous paintings Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon and how this explicitly sexualized inclusion in the piece underlies and adds to the "primitive" influences of the piece. Steefel presents the argument that this is not in fact a harmless bowl of fruit, but is rather a phallic symbol that is as aggressive as the entire piece itself. This painting is described as embodying the over sexualized, traumatic, and aggressive nature of the view of the primitive Amazonian women as a whole. Noting that something as simple and harmless as a bowl of fruit is transformed into an assertive, male, phallic symbol when contextualized with the "primitive" Amazonian women. 


     Though this may seem to be a jump forward in the process of analyzing the influences of the "primitive" in Picasso's works, it is a piece that takes his work within the influence of the primitive to an entirely new level, this is no mundane depiction of "primitive" life, but rather a highly sexualized scene of women in a brothel. This challenges what is high art, what is the view of other cultures within the time period, and challenges the context of art as a whole. Picasso's influences of primitivism at the time are taken a step further in this painting. The often ignored bowl of fruit serves as a testament to the pushing of limits in terms of primitive depictions. I aim to make clear that this is not a harmless or meaningless inclusion, but rather a meaningful commentary of the permeation of the conception of the "primitive" in art. 

     Steefel does well in regards to analyzing the work in reference to major themes and relating it to other articles which interpret the ugliness and super sexualization in relation to the perceived primitive nature of the women, however I believe that he could have gone further even to argue that this view, and this influence of the "primitive" in Picasso's work has the ability to manipulate and transform even the most harmless, and traditional subject, a still life of a bowl of fruit, into something both sexual and intrusive due to the overarching themes of primitivism. This is a true testament to the perception of the primitive, both during that time and Picasso's statement on the subject matter itself in that he is able to include something so mundane and present it in such a way, with such settings that it appears as daunting and primitivized as the Amazonian women themselves. 

Full Citation:

The Neglected Fruit Cluster in Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon"

Lawrence D. Steefel, Jr.

Artibus et Historiae , Vol. 13, No. 26 (1992), pp. 115-120

Published by: IRSA s.c.

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483434