Picasso: Landscapes 1890-1912 : From the Academy to the Avant-Garde
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Picasso: Landscapes 1890-1912 : From the Academy to the Avant-Garde Details
From Library Journal A lavishly illustrated catalog for a show at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, organized under director Oca?a, this book provides studies of the formative years of Picasso through his use of landscape. In a series of independent essays by a variety of authorities on the artist, landscape is used to discuss Picasso's various transformations, from his beginnings under his father's tutelege, to abandonment of official art, to the influences of the Saffron Group, Munch, the Nabis, African sculpture, Impressionism, and Cezanne. Picasso's work, his Cubist collaboration with Braque, the intense colors of his palette, flatness and rhythm?all are narrowly analyzed in the fully footnoted essays, which sometimes overlap. The book also discusses how Picasso loved the life and scenery of rural Spain, what painting landscape meant to him, and how his later work assimilated this early period. Each essay is followed by a portfolio of color reproductions, and a chronology and bibliography are included at the back of the book. Overall, this unique title will be sought by students of Picasso and 20th-century art. Recomended for special collections.?Ellen Bates, New YorkCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more
Reviews
After seeing a new exhibit of early Picasso drawings at the National Gallery recently, I took another look at this 1994 book of the artist's landscapes of the same period (more or less). To begin with, the idea of Picasso as a landscape painter isn't commonly discussed in the full run of his professional career. Nonetheless, he created some phenomenal work in his Spanish student years that display his characteristic "sampling" of styles and approaches; recognizable in these very interesting paintings of Spanish cities, countryside, and village are flavors of tonalism, impressionism, Corot,, a bit of Turner, etc. These early paintings--up to about 1900--are generally representational and often painted with a limited, earth tone palette.After 1900, the landscapes become more populated with figures and conform to the transitions of Picasso's style; first blue-toned paintings of villages, streets, etc. in the noted Blue Period, followed by deconstructed paintings and drawings of those subjects in the cubist period. All more proof of the artist's fertile and hyperactive mind, trying out one approach after another, and putting his own mark on each.This well-illustrated and beautifully printed book ends in 1912 with Picasso at the height of his focus on Cubism. I'm not a Picasso scholar by any means, but it seems to me that it may have been the artist's last real fling with landscape painting. Mores the pity, because this collection of early works shows him to have been a real master of the genre with an eye for and connection with nature."Picasso: Landscapes..." was originally published to accompany an exhibition by the same name mounted by the Museu Picasso of Barcelona. The institution's pride and competence is readily displayed in this beautiful and authoritative book.