Pablo Picasso was born in Spain in 1881, and grew up there. However, he spent most of his adult life in France while he was working as an artist. He is known as one of the most influential and celebrated artists of the twentieth century. He is one of the most famous modernists of 19th century who worked on cubism paintings and opened a new expressive way of modernism in arts. Picasso said, “Paintings are flat, sculptures are 3-dimensional. Why cannot paintings be made to see things from different directions?” (4). He is one of the founding fathers of cubism in modern art. He reflected life, landscape and work through his paintings which was done in cubism. According to the Library Journal, Picasso produced about 1500 illustrations during the period of cubism (1).
“Woman with Pears’ represents the portrait of Fernande Olivier Pablo who is Picasso’s mistress and who also inspired the artist’s rose period”(2). In the picture called ‘Woman with Pears’, Picasso used a combination of science and math to embody beauty and human structure of a woman. Here he used a lot of triangles and rectangles to fragment the round structure which eventually portraits her face. On the other hand, to draw pears he used circle which is quite different in shape compared to triangles. The shadow and contrast created by using those shapes in this two dimensional picture is truly beautiful and unique.
There is no fancy try to make it realistic. In fact, the brush strokes are pretty obvious in the art. The combination of different shapes and segmenting them to shape the art were something new compared to the traditional arts of those time. Here we see darkness and brightness of the woman’s face which reflects the aesthetic side of the art. While it could be all beautiful, the artist chooses to combine both side of human nature. Craving is another practice in aestheticism (3). Here in the picture, it’s clear that Picasso craved in the area of the woman’s neck which clarifies the the artist preferred the art to be aesthetic.
I haven’t encountered this art in any other context. However, the facial expression of the woman is kind of strange. It’s unclear if she has a happy or sad expression. And slicing the round shape to embody the art makes me think if there is any internal sadness(of the woman) the artist tried to represent.
Work Cited
- Frosch, Paula. “Picasso Cubism, 1907-1917 (Book).” Library Journal, vol. 116, no. 2, 2/1/1991, p.77.EBSCOhost,mail.lagcc.cuny.edu/viplogin/default.aspx?redirect=http://search.ebscohost.com.rpa.laguardia.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9102183479&site=ehost-live.
- http://www.widewalls.ch/pablo-picasso-portraits/the-old-guitarist/
- https://books.google.com/books?id=WqlSM_MxoRoC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=picasso+is+aesthetic+art+woman+with+pears&source=bl&ots=eayor5opps&sig=Sx5SsPt2w2qxz_hGTRVCruMQun8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin5eeX5fzTAhVDSCYKHYoZA38Q6AEIVjAN#v=onepage&q=picasso%20is%20aesthetic%20art%20woman%20with%20pears&f=false
- http://modernism-literature-movement.weebly.com/cubism.html