Channeling Picasso
New Work from “The Great Reconciliation” Series
My image above, “La Vie”, was inspired by the painting below, Pablo Picasso’s 1903 work of the same name. The Picasso painting is in the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Having grown up in Cleveland, I have loved the painting since I was a child. It is such a beautiful and mysterious work about love, life, and art. Its meaning has long been the subject of speculation.
The male figure is clearly a likeness of Picasso’s close friend, the troubled poet and painter Carles Casagemas. Casagemas died by suicide shortly before Picasso made the painting. X-rays show that Picasso originally painted the male as a self-portrait. The setting is clearly an artist’s studio (while my version is set in a forest or garden), and Picasso’s paintings are clearly visible in the background. Created during a period of extreme poverty for Picasso, some suggest the background works represent portraits of prostitutes Picasso habitually made in exchange for sex. The female figure is assumed by some to be Picasso’s adoring mother holding her young “baby genius”. Picasso never lacked for self-regard.
Critics generally concur that the focal point of the painting is the male figure’s mysterious hand gesture, perhaps borrowed from a 1525 work by the Italian Renaissance painter Correggio (see below). In the Correggio work, Jesus is reaching back toward Mary Magdalene. I learned of this interpretation after I completed my work, so I did not quite nail the exact hand gesture in my image. But I was aware of how important the hand was to the visual coherence of the piece, and I tried to direct the model accordingly.
IN-PERSON WORKSHOP
There are still spaces available for this in person workshop at the legendary Maine Media Workshops.
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In “Introduction to Photoshop”, we will demystify this vital software package. Join us in beautiful Rockport, ME for a week of digital fun, exploration, and creativity. Click here to learn more.
I liked the art history lesson, and a view of Picasso's work in his earlier more narratively than formally oriented work that usually gets shunted compared to his flashier, and more influential, cubist and post-cubist periods.