Thesis: Picasso’s work during the interwar period illustrates a deep lack of direction and internal experimentation as he toyed with every artistic movement and style of the time. A contemporary journalist once described Picasso’s name as being “synonymous with all that is waywardly bizarre in modern painting”.
Pablo Picasso produced over 20,000 different pieces of all styles and mediums during his seven-decade career. His work covers a multitude of different topics, from meaningless to deeply rooted in grief. Over the course of his extensive career he developed his own unique style, melding the realistic with the imagination and everything in between. He was referred to by his contemporaries as the “jack-of-all-mediums,” though even they …show more content…
Many deemed him the “jack-of-all-mediums,” his work varied greatly in style, theme, and often even in composition. He began to rise in fame at the turn of the century, when he entered what is commonly referred to as his Blue Period. During this time his work explored the dark themes of sorrow and poverty, but he quickly moved on to his Rose Period, which focused on the more positive aspects of life. After these two periods Picasso transitioned to one of the most notable stages of his career. The style that Picasso is best known for, Cubism, was first demonstrated in his highly controversial Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907. The work depicts five women morphed and twisted (some might say mutilated) to force viewers to truly explore the idea of perspective. Cubism has often been described as the “breakdown of illusionistic space”, illusionistic space being the commonly accepted method of drawing or depicting perspective in which objects are presented in the manner of a photograph, artistic liberties are not taken. It is hard to strictly define Cubism, but it is often marked by an abstraction of viewpoint and simplification of form, the image is intended to be …show more content…
He lacked inspiration and turned to the emerging trend of the time, Surrealism. This is shown in one of his best-known paintings, Woman with a Flower (1932). His deficiency of confidence in his work is displayed in the painting; it lacks a unified style or theme. He didn’t quite trust in his own abilities, feeling instead that his fame and status alone lead to the appreciation of his work. The woman in the image is obviously angry, Picasso slants her eyebrows in extremely and he face is drawn into a scowl, leading to the assumption that she may be his recently estranged wife Olga. Picasso has carefully selected which parts of female anatomy to leave intact, drawing very plainly the woman’s breasts and ponytail while the majority of what is depicted is clearly morphed. It is not known whether this is done to mock Olga or to emphasize what he appreciated of her. Picasso gave little explanation of this painting; it is likely that he did not truly understand it
Pablo Picasso produced over 20,000 different pieces of all styles and mediums during his seven-decade career. His work covers a multitude of different topics, from meaningless to deeply rooted in grief. Over the course of his extensive career he developed his own unique style, melding the realistic with the imagination and everything in between. He was referred to by his contemporaries as the “jack-of-all-mediums,” though even they …show more content…
Many deemed him the “jack-of-all-mediums,” his work varied greatly in style, theme, and often even in composition. He began to rise in fame at the turn of the century, when he entered what is commonly referred to as his Blue Period. During this time his work explored the dark themes of sorrow and poverty, but he quickly moved on to his Rose Period, which focused on the more positive aspects of life. After these two periods Picasso transitioned to one of the most notable stages of his career. The style that Picasso is best known for, Cubism, was first demonstrated in his highly controversial Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907. The work depicts five women morphed and twisted (some might say mutilated) to force viewers to truly explore the idea of perspective. Cubism has often been described as the “breakdown of illusionistic space”, illusionistic space being the commonly accepted method of drawing or depicting perspective in which objects are presented in the manner of a photograph, artistic liberties are not taken. It is hard to strictly define Cubism, but it is often marked by an abstraction of viewpoint and simplification of form, the image is intended to be …show more content…
He lacked inspiration and turned to the emerging trend of the time, Surrealism. This is shown in one of his best-known paintings, Woman with a Flower (1932). His deficiency of confidence in his work is displayed in the painting; it lacks a unified style or theme. He didn’t quite trust in his own abilities, feeling instead that his fame and status alone lead to the appreciation of his work. The woman in the image is obviously angry, Picasso slants her eyebrows in extremely and he face is drawn into a scowl, leading to the assumption that she may be his recently estranged wife Olga. Picasso has carefully selected which parts of female anatomy to leave intact, drawing very plainly the woman’s breasts and ponytail while the majority of what is depicted is clearly morphed. It is not known whether this is done to mock Olga or to emphasize what he appreciated of her. Picasso gave little explanation of this painting; it is likely that he did not truly understand it