| Artist: | Picasso, Pablo |
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|---|---|---|
| Title of Work: | Nude Woman | |
| Date of Work: | 1910 | |
| Nationality: | Spanish | |
| Context: | Pre-WWI | |
| Movement: | Picasso: Analytic Cubism (hermetic stage) | |
| Medium: | ||
| Subject: almost impossible to "read" in terms of subject matter at this hermetic stage of Analytical Cubism (1910-11), but then subject matter does not really matter in Cubism anyway; remember what Braque will say about Cubism: "the subject is not the object." He would also add, "I do not believe in things, I believe in relations." The subject matter is not the true objective of Cubism; painting relations, or passage, is more to the point. Physical matter itself is dissolved by Cubism's faceting and fragmenting, which turns mass into a linear network--the grid--that affirms the allover, flat picture plane. What this grid is mapping or diagramming (rather than mirroring in mimetic fashion) is a nude woman. Analytic Cubism is at the breaking point here; if it goes any further in abstracting the figure it will soon reach the point of non-objectivity in which any lingering figurative elements drop out completely. Where he goes next after this, thus, is crucial to what the Cubist project is all about for Picasso. Is it about a progression in which complete abstraction is the end goal? Or is it truly about multiple perspectives? See the next image to find out. Style: Picasso shatters one-point perspective into multiple, shifting frames of reference with the help of lessons learned from Cezanne's art, most notably, "passage"--the commingling of faceted planes in space that fuse figure and ground into an allover structural unity--here the grid--that holds the picture tightly together while dismantling the integrity of the various objects pictured, which end up highly fragmented in the process. Light and shadow add to the confusion by no longer being traceable to a single source; this is not light coming from nature but light and shadow as part of the language of art, which can break with the laws of nature to create mutually conflicting, multiple sources. Modeling in the round is thereby undermined by a light that flickers across the whole field rather than setting up a clearly defined, unambiguous focus. Everything is much flatter and more complex here than it was in 1908-09; the "grid" has replaced "volumetric flatness" as Picasso levels the playing field by more radically shifting away from the figure in the round, which he re-maps into a diagram; there is no way to speak of a mirror of nature here in the mimetic sense. The degree of abstraction is much greater. Context: this is the later stage of Analytic Cubism (1910-11) in which the subject matter becomes so difficult to read that we call this stage "hermetic," implying hidden or sealed inwardly; no traces of green remain as Picasso and Braque keep to a strictly disciplined, monochromatic palette of earth tones, ochres, and greys. Color drops out as the grid takes over; it is no longer about setting an emotional mood as it was in the Blue and Rose Periods, but about radically redefining the representation of space on the flat picture plane, and color gets in the way. Cezanne's lesson of "passage" continues to be employed here, but "volumetric passage" also drops off as the "grid" takes over and space becomes flatter. This is Analytic Cubism at the breaking point. The invention of "collage" in 1911-12 will be the next significant turning point, shifting the frame of reference from Analytic to Synthetic Cubism. | ||
