Some questions about Pablo Picasso....?

Question

Picasso once said, "I paint forms as I think them, not as I see them." In so doing, consider the following prompts:

* What do you think he means?

* Where do you see this statement visually expressed in his works?

* How does the Cubist conception of space differ from that held during the Renaissance?

* In what way does Picasso's statement reflect the various avant-garde and/or Modernist approaches to art that emerged in the late-19th century and in the early decades of the 20th century?

Answer 1

What Picasso means is that a face, for example, has both eyes, even if you only can see the face in profile the other eye is still there, you just can't see it.  Picasso tore up the rule book and painted BOTH eyes, when painting a profile.

This thought, that the whole of an obejct is present, so why not paint it from multiple view points is clearly visible in works such as Weeping Woman from 1937

http://www.artinliverpool.com/blog/image...

and Still Life With Bottle from 1911

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/...

Because Picasso shows us ALL of an object, rather than just the immediately visable, he throws out  ideas of perspective and depth, creating a new, modern visual palette.  Rather than the formalist, painterly approach of all artists since the Renaissance, Picasso expressly declines to use the conventions, and instead shows the viewer a literal, and metaphorical view of an object.

Picasso in many ways is a continuation of the Fauvists, the Impressionists (particularly Cezanne) - in his use of abstraction, of his use of light and his deliberate use of shock tactics.  His ideas also feed into other art movements, from De Stijl to Pop Art - his revolutionary ideas are still affecting Art, and will continue to for many years to come.

Hope that helped

Answer 2

Picasso was very much a realist.  He had an academic background being taught by his artist father.  So, no matter how difficult it may be to see the "table" or "figure" in his paintings, it's there.  He probably never painted an abstract painting in his life.

This is expressed simply by the fact he never painted abstractly.  All his painting were "of something".

Regarding space, the mondernists (starting with cezanne), introduced a new way of seeing.  Where by the side front and bottom could all be represented as equals in the visual plane.  The rennaissance artists tried to capture reality, where by the modernist captured humans reaction to reality.