I could not attend this exhibition in person, but once I was informed that it was available as a virtual tour, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get to experience something that I thought I had missed the opportunity of viewing.
The early self portrait does not suggest sadness, although it is done in the Blue Period. So too, La Vie suggest creativity, the start of humankind.
His choice of circus performers in the Rose period might have come from his sense of being outsider, as an artist. There is a greater lightness to these pictures than those of the Blue period.
The inclusion of non Western influences in his work creates more disturbing images, with a focus on the face, such as in the Demoiselles d’Avignon.
He then heads towards greater abstraction, using not faces but solid objects such as a guitar, a bottle. I liked the costume designs for “Parade” with the splash of colour and little dots around and within it, and the skyscraper costume which forces the viewer to look at it.
The self portrait of this time is disturbing like a Cubist image but in a subtler way. There is something almost alien and inhuman about the “Head of Woman”. The images of Walter go one step further, with what looks like a penis on her head.
From the War images, the man and sheep series is oddly heartwarming, creating a pet/master dynamic. The disturbing sheep skull drawings remind me of the dark images H. R. Giger or David Kronenberg.
I liked the grouping of small paintings of women, which was creative and different to his previous compositions.
Overall, Picasso’s work is extraordinarily varied in style, sometimes erotic, other times cubist, with many different kinds of art such as portraits and sculpture.
The exhibition is available to view virtually here.
Tomás 