research 3

H· Here are a few more of my notes that I was unable to put up earlier and I have more to come.

• ‘A picture is not thought of and settled beforehand. While it is being done it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it is finished it still goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it. A picture lives a life like a living creature, undergoing the changes imposed on us by our life, from day to day. This is natural enough, as the picture lives only through the man who is looking at it.’ – Picasso (pg 44)
• · There is talk of Picasso’s obsession with pain in his art, through the lines and shapes of the figures, the brush strokes he uses and the colours within the image. (more information on pages 46-47)
• · Over the years Picasso sketches many images of the corrida. At first the images are taken from the position of the audience watching the fight. Later the bull will take on a more human role. During a love affair the bull morphs into a Minotaur. (pg 47-48)
• · When doing images of the horse and the bull and the picador, Picasso would usually leave out the Picador (who is the main antagonise) and the torero’s (who draw the bull away if anything goes wrong) and leave it with just the Bull and Horse, removing them from the context of the corrida. (pg50)
• · The bull is the aggressor and the horse a passive partner.
• · In his images it is a purely human erotic act. The bull charges to plunge itself into the horse which waits submissive. (pg52)
• · Though the horse may have male genitalia because of its submission to the machismo of the bull it takes the female role.
• · Blood spilt is the horses which is spilt from the stomach, some liken this to menstrual blood.
• · The fight is a battle of the sexes.
• · For years it had been a battle between the horse and the bull but in 1934 and 1935 Marie-Theres became pregnant , Olga (Wife) leaves with his son, the 2 animals , who have taken on a human form, are now joined by a blond nude in a series of sketches called ‘femme torero’
• · Here the horse is trampled into the dirt while the bull carries on unruffled with the beautiful woman across his back who has his full attention.
• · Picasso Told Juan Larrera the horse in his art represents the most important woman in his life.
• · He told Francaise her symbol is the horse and his the bull.
• · In Guernica many believed that the bull in the image represented Franco and the horse was a representation of the Spanish people, or that the bull is the Spanish peoples strength. But in images found in Paris of preliminary sketches over view this.
• · The original design for the mural was of a woman and the artist. (pg 59)
• · ‘By 1932 Picasso had become incressingly obsessed with the theme artist and model as his relationship with Marie-Therese intensified and her face and figure came to dominate all aspects of his work.’ (pg59)
• · Pg 64 writer asks audience was the original theme inappropriate because of the subject of who his model was? Was it appropriate for a pavilion that was representing a besieged home land?
• · By the early sketches it appears he was going to do a mural based on his own private life.
• · This might be wat you expect from a man who didnt want to be pushed to either side of the political devide.
• · The raised fist with a hammer/sickle is drawn over his final sketch for the first mural, a newspaper and in study of Guernica on may 9^th. ‘it would be seen again in the first two states of the final canvas, rising from the body of the fallen warrior. This it seems possible that Picasso’s use of the communist solute in his drawings of April 19^th was only a temporary reaction to the words of appeasement by Delbos, one that was not sustained in further images.’ (pg 68)
• · After April 19^th the artist and the model theme was lost. He spent the next few weeks looking for more appropriate theme.
• · 1^st May he began sketches for the Guernica but took elements from the studio, e.g action taking place within a room drawn in perspective. (pg68)
• · Here Picasso is focusing on the suffering of the Spanish people and away from his studio.
• · Chipp sasy that it was not the war itself that caught Picassos need to paint a respns but the suffering of the Spanish people.(pg68)
• · Picasso had 24 days to design and paint a 25.5 foot mural .
• · It was the stories of human suffering that spurred him on. Or so it seems as it was at this point when images of the town and the people came through.
• · First sketch shows that he doesn’t show bombing and destruction but goes back to the bull and horse. (pg 70)
• · ‘The violence of the bull-horse struggle is an excellent visual analogue of the agony of the human victims of Guernica.’ (pg70)
• · The first sketches indicate he was not drawing an event he had witnessed (e.g images) but had to find his own feelings on it.
• · Pg 72
• · A constant part of the image is the woman leaning into the scene, illuminating what is happening.
• · The outstretched hand is scene in other images and can can be used as a symble of empathy (dying Minotaur) Grace ect. (pg74)
• · Picasso does many compositions to find which is the best way to show his view of the pain and suffering . (chapter 6)
• · He spends some time away from the sketches to focus on the horses head ‘To see as Arntheim notes, whether it could serve as the sole bearer of the emotion.’ (pg 75)
• · He distorts the features and the angle of the head, with great contrast between light and dark.
• · The tongue is formed into the shape of a spear head.