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Explore the journey from Pre-Colonial Mughal Art to the revolutionary era of Cubism, featuring artists like Tagore, Bose, Picasso, and Braque. Discover the fusion of Indian heritage and Western influences in a transformative artistic narrative.
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British control of India began in 1757, lasted 190 years, and ended in 1947. “. . . .every Museum of Modern Art in the United States and Europe should be required, in the spirit of truth in advertising, to change its name to Museum of Western Modernism until it has earned the right to do otherwise.” - Holland Cotter NYTimes Pre-Colonial Mughal Art: Portrait of Amr Singh attributed to Bishin Das dated 1624 AD Abanindranath Tagore (Indian, 1871-1951) My Mother, N/D, c.1920 12.7 x 20.3 cm
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) , “father” of Indian Modernism – poet, novelist, educator, artist, reformer, critic of colonialism, early advocate of Independence for India, winner of the Nobel prize for literature in 1913 Rabindrinath Tagore and Einstein, July 14, 1930 Poem visually composed Dancing Girl, oil painting, 1910?
Nandalal Bose (Indian,1882-1966), New Clouds, 1937. Tempera on paper, 16 5/8 x 27 1/2 inches. National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.
Nandalal Bose, Village Huts, 1928. Watercolor and wash on paper, 8 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches. National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.
CUBISM Hand in hand [Braque and Picasso] left behind the world of simple appearances. . . . The two friends worked toward the solution of the same problems, now one, now the other finding the means to achieve seemingly identical goals. Wilhelm Uhde, 1928 Recalling the development of Cubism between 1908-1914
(left) Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963) in his Paris studio, early 1912 (right) Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) in his Paris studio, late 1911 In spite of out very different temperaments, we were guided by a common idea . . . .the differences didn’t count. . . . We lived in Montmartre, we saw each other every day, we talked. . . . It was a little like being roped together on a mountain. Georges Braque on his friendship with Picasso and the formulation of Cubism, 1908-1914
Picasso, Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, 1896 Picasso is 15 years old. What people regard as premature genius is the genius of childhood.… So far as I am concerned, I did not have that genius. My first drawings could never have been shown at an exhibition of children’s drawings. I lacked the clumsiness of a child, his naiveté. I made academic drawings at the age of seven, the minute precision of which frightened me.” Picasso Self-Portrait, 1896
Picasso, Le Moulin de la Galette, 1900, oil, 35 x 46”(right top) Édouard Manet, Masked Ball at the Opera, 1873, 59 x 72 cm Edvard Munch, Dance of Life, 1889
Picasso, La Vie, 1903, 6’5”x 4’2”, “Blue Period” SymbolismGauguin, Where Do We Come From, What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897-98
(left) Paris apartment of American expatriates Gertrude and Leo Stein, 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris, the location of the famous Saturday evening salons.(right) Le Bateau-Lavoir, a block of buildings in Montmartre, Paris where Picasso lived from 1904-1909 Recommended readings: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (a 1933 autobiography of Gertrude Stein) and The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I by Roger Shattock
(left) Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905, oil on canvas, 84 x 90 in, a major work of the “Harlequin” or “Rose” period (right) Edouard Manet, The Old Musician, 1872, oil on canvas, 90 3/4 x 114 in. Catalogue of the Parisian dispossessed = anomie self-identified with Manet and the avant-garde Picasso as harlequin – trickster clown Daumier, Wandering Saltimbanques, 1847/50
Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905Antoine Watteau (Flemish-French, 1684-1721, Rococo) commedia dell'arte player of Pierrot, ca 1718-19, traditionally identified as Gilles (Louvre)
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/Spring02/104/steinpicasso.htmlPicasso, Portrait of Gertrude Stein, oil on canvas,1906, 39 x 32” Bequest of Gertrude Stein, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Ingres, Portrait of Louis-Francois Bertin, 1832, Louvre Stein with portrait, 1922
Iberian stone relief showing facial structure of 1906 portraits Detail, Gertrude Stein, 1906 Picasso, Self-Portrait, 1906
Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Paris, June-July 1907, oil on canvas, 8' x 7' 8“The artist is 25 years old.
(left) Edgar Degas, Name Day of the Madame, 1889, monotype and pastel Compare with Les Demoiselles D’Avignon
(left) Paul Cézanne, Large Bathers, oil on canvas, 52 x 86 in.,1900-05 with Les Demoiselles
Henri Matisse, Joy of Life, 1905-06with Les Demoiselles, 1907
(left) Henri Rousseau (French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1844-1910), The Dream, 1910
Picasso, Studies for Les Demoiselles D'Avignon, spring, 1907, (left) oil on canvas, 7 1/2 x 8“; (right) watercolor. A quantity of preparatory work unparalleled for one picture in the history of art.
Transformative influence of African tribal sculpture Picasso’s epiphany in June 1907 at the ethnographic museum in ParisBraque: “It is as if someone had drunk kerosene to spit fire." “My first exorcism painting…. For me the masks were not just sculptures. They were magical objects...intercessors...against everything - against unknown threatening spirits....They were weapons . . . to keep people from being ruled by spirits. To help them free themselves. . . . If we give a form to these spirits we become free."
(left) Pablo Picasso, Three Women, 1907-8, oil on canvas, 6’6” x 7’6”(right) Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963), Large Nude, 1908, oil on canvas, 55” x 39”begun immediately after seeing Les Demoiselles and the first stage of Three Women.
(left) Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954) The Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra) 1907, oil on canvas, 36 x 55”, Fauvism(right) Braque, Large Nude, 1908, oil on canvas, 55” x 39” Influence of Matisse on Braque (and Picasso). Matisse introduced Picasso to African art in the autumn of 1906.
Shared Primitivism: (right) Picasso in Paris studio with Caledonian figures, 1908(left) Braque in Paris studio with African masks, 1911
Georges Braque, Pre-Picasso Fauve painting (left) Landscape near Antwerp (Paysage près d'Anvers), 1906, oil on canvas, 24 x 32”, (right) Matissse, Le bonheur de vivre (The Joy of Life) 1905-1906, oil on canvas 69 x 95”
Braque, Viaduct at L'Estaque, autumn 1907, oil on canvas, 25 x 31 in.Braque sees Cézanne retrospective in Paris, October,1907, at the Salon d’Automne
Braque, Houses at L’Estaque, August 1908, oil on canvas, 28 x 23”painted after his Large Nude(right) Paul Cézanne, The Bay from L’Estaque, oil on canvas, 31 x 38”, 1886Braque’s evolving Cézannism. Fauve palette has disappeared. Matisse disapproves of Braque’s “little cubes,” and, as jurist for the Salon D’Automne, rejects Braque’s paintings. Cubism is named. Picasso and Braque begin to see each other daily. Studios are minutes apart.
(left) Braque, Harbor in Normandy, summer 1909 (right) Picasso, Houses on the Hill, Horta de Ebro, summer 1909 with photograph of the Spanish town by the artist (below).In 1909 both Picasso and Braque stopped showing their paintings in the salons. Cubist figure-ground ambiguity, faceting, and monochromatic palette
Picasso, Woman's Head (Fernande), bronze, summer 1909 (right) Woman with Pears, Fernande, oil on canvas, summer 1909(center) Picasso and Fernande Olivier in Montmartre, c. 1908
(left) Braque, Violin and Palette, autumn 1909, oil, 36 x 17” Note use of trompe l’oeil nail – an allusion to Renaissance illusionism(right) Picasso, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), 1910
In the early days of Cubism, Pablo Picasso and I were engaged in what we felt was a search for the anonymous personality. We were inclined to efface our own personalities in order to find originality. - Braque Georges Braque (left) and Pablo Picasso (right) wearing Braque’s military uniform, Braque’s apartment, Paris, 1911. The exchanges of 1911 and 1912 show the collaboration-competition at its height.
(left) Pablo Picasso, The Accordionist, 1911, oil on canvas, 51 x 35 in(right) Georges Braque, The Portuguese (The Emigrant), 1911, 46 x 32”Braque introduces stencil-type letters “outside of space” – literalizing the canvas surface Analytic Cubism
“We didn’t sign are canvases because we felt the temptation, the hope of an anonymous art, not in its expression, but in its point of departure. We were trying to set up a new order and it had to express itself through different individuals. Nobody needed to know that it was so-and-so who had done this or that painting. . . . But individualism was already too strong, and that effort resulted in failure. . . .” - Picasso (left) Picasso, Ma Jolie (Woman with a Guitar), 1911(right) Braque, The Portuguese (The Emigrant), 1911
Braque, Homage to J.S.Bach, oil on canvas, 21 x 28”, Céret, Winter 1911-12First use of trompe l’oeil wood grain created with housepainter’s combsPicasso, The Poet, summer 1912, oil on canvas, 23 x 19”Picasso, instructed by Braque, uses housepainter’s combs for the hair, adding an element of wit. Almost every evening, either I went to Braque’s studio or Braque came to mine. Each of us had to see what the other had done during the day. - Picasso (recalling 1910-12)
(left) Braque’s only documented paper sculpture, photographed in 1914(right) Wall arrangement in Picasso’s studio, November-December 1912. Picasso’s cardboard guitar generated the concept of the papiers collés aroundit
Picasso, Maquette for Guitar, October 1912, cardboard, string and wire(right) Grebo mask owned by Picasso “You’ll see. I’m going to hold on to the Guitar, but I shall sell its plan. Everyone will be able to make it himself.” Picasso to André Salmon
(left) Picasso, Guitar, Sheet Music and Glass, charcoal and papier collé, November 1912 (right) Braque, Fruit Dish and Glass, charcoal and papier collé, September 1912 “LA BATAILLE S’EST ENGAGÉ”: “I have to admit, that after having made the papier collé I felt a great shock, and it was an even greater shock for Picasso When I showed it to him” Braques
Picasso, Still life With Chair Caning, May 1912, 11 x 14”collage of oil, oil cloth, pasted paper on oval canvas surrounded by rope.First Cubist collage (not papier collé) – Picasso’s “discontinuity principle”
Picasso, Glass of Absinthe, spring 1914, painted bronze with perforated silver-plated absinthe spoon. Edition of six casts commissioned by Picasso’s dealer, Kahnweiler, each painted separately
(left) Braque at the front, December 17, 1914(center) Braque photographed by painter Henri Laurens in Lauren’s studio, 1915 (right) Picasso in his studio at rue Schoelcher, 1914-16 “During [the Cubist] years, Picasso and I said things go one another that will never be said again . . . That no one will ever be able to understand . . . Things that would be incomprehensible, but that gave us great joy. . . . All that will end with us.” - Braque
Picasso, (left) Three Women at the Spring, 1921, 6’8” X 5’8” (right) Three Musicians, oil on canvas, 1921, 6’7” x 7’4” After 1914 and the end of the creative dialogue with Braque, Picasso begins a dual-track (Representational & Synthetic Cubist) production
"Beauty is everywhere, in the arrangement of your pots and pans, on the white wall of your kitchen, more perhaps than in your eighteenth-century salon or in the official museum.“ Fernand Léger (French 1881-1955) “Machine Aesthetic”FernandLéger, Woman Sewing (The Artist’s Mother), 1909
Fernand Léger, The City, 1919, 7’7” x 9’9” Philadelphia MA “Innumerable examples of rupture and change crop up unexpectedly in our visual awareness. The advertising billboard, dictated by modern commercial needs, that brutally cuts across a landscape is one of the things that has most infuriated so-called men of …. good taste.”