10845 “Goddesses and doormats” The bewildering variety of styles and media employed by Picasso Picasso in his middle and late work defies easy categorizing. MIDDLE AND LATE PAINTING One ‘key’, some contend, is his love life. Bronwyn Watson: by Women were crucial to Picasso’s art. Major stylistic shifts Dr John W Nixon were often precipitated by a change of mistress or wife. Dora Maar, one of his mistresses, said the transformat- ions in Picasso’s style reflected transformations in his private life. When the woman changed, everything Related Study Notes Pablo Picasso’s (1881–1973) career as an artist extended to over 80 enormously prolific years. At his death in changed – not just the art, but the house he lived in, his 1973 there were some 50,000 works – paintings, circle of friends, even the dog. 10060 drawings, prints, sculptures and ceramics – in his “I paint the way some people write their autobiogra- From realism to abstraction personal collection. He could afford to keep much of his phy,” Picasso told Françoise Gilot, another lover. You can own art because the pieces he did sell commanded such track the state of his relationships through his pictorial 10710 representation of women and certainly much of his work Fauvism high prices. This commercial power reflected the critical reputation – his Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1906–7, shows the intensity, passion or hostility of his feelings. 10720 with which he effectively launched Cubism, and Picasso was fond of saying there were two kinds of Cubist painting in France Guernica, 1937, his protest at the German bombing of females – goddesses and doormats. He could portray 10740 the Spanish town of that name, are widely acclaimed as women as idealised, sensuous goddesses and he created the most influential paintings of the 20th century. It is on Northern Expressionist the most vivid images of sexual pleasure. But he could painting 1880–1918 the pre-1918 ‘Blue’, ‘Rose’ and, especially, Cubist also produce aggressive, monstrous distortions of the 1 periods that his almost mythic reputation is founded. female figure… 10821 However, if in quantity and quality of artistic output no Picasso’s principal partners are briefly identified below. Surrealist painting other modern artist has rivalled him, his very facility of technique and production, especially in his middle and FERNANDE OLIVIER 10844 late periods, have also raised concern. For instance, his Fig. 1 Drawing of Fernande Olivier, c. 1904. Matisse, middle and late painting style-shifting – he was known to produce both Cubist and Neoclassical works on the same day – has suggest- 30343 ed to some critics a measure of artistic superficiality or Fernande Olivier became his model and lover in 1904. She is Diego Velázquez insincerity. Some of the late work has even been associated with his ‘Rose’ period. The highly aggressive imagery in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1906–7, has been 30412 dismissed as ‘senile doodling’. In contrast to the pre- Édouard Manet 1918 work, the post-1918 does not fall easily into defined interpreted as betokening a fragmenting of the relationship. periods and styles. One key to greater understanding of EVA GOUEL 30420 these post-1918 style changes seems to be knowledge French Post-Impressionist Picasso’s relationship with Eva Gouel began in 1911, about of his love life at the time. This was complicated and painting the time when he and Braque were entering the High phase more often than not ended painfully for the woman. Also of Cubism. References to her were sometimes secreted in 30421 impacting at various times and to various degrees on his texts and images contained in the paintings. By all accounts Paul Cézanne art were: world events and politics (he had Communist Picasso was deeply taken with Gouel, and devastated when, sympathies and was strongly antagonistic to Franco and 30820 on 11 December 1915, she died of tuberculosis. Modernism and Fascism), contemporary avant-garde literature, and art OLGA KUKHOVA Postmodernism of the past (he made many ‘free interpretations’ of works Following the outbreak of the 1914–18 First World War, his by Velázquez, El Greco, Ingres, Delacroix, Courbet, 30830 friend the composer Erik Satie introduced Picasso to a new Manet and others). His use of art of the past, in his later School of London painting literary and musical avant-garde, among these the poet Jean years, can be seen as part of the general cultural shift Cocteau. In 1915 Cocteau began work on a theatrical per- from Modernism into Postmodernism. formance, Parade, in which Satie was to provide the music, In the text, a Z symbol Picasso the set and costume designs, and Sergey Diaghilev, refers to these Study Notes AS and A2 content with his Ballets Russes (Russian Ballet), the performers. In The present study note addresses Picasso’s middle and late 1917 Picasso accompanied Cocteau to Rome to meet painting, his early being treated under Cubism (Z10720). His painting up to 1945 falls within two AS sections, and that Fig. 2 Portrait of Olga in an Armchair, 1917; oil on canvas, 130 x 88 after 1945 within one A2 section. The current specification cm. should be consulted for the details. Discussion of specific examples may range up to five 2 years beyond any of the sections’ chronological boundaries. Diaghilev. There he also met Olga Kukhova, one of the Over five years and up to a maximum of fifteen, penalties are progressively imposed, except where the purpose of discuss- 1 Bronwyn Watson, Goddesses and Doormats website article, 2 Nov. ion is not to describe and analyse specific examples but to 2002; www.smh.com.au/articles. Picasso is recorded as saying this to establish general context or significance, when no chrono- Françoise Gilot, p. 1. logical restrictions apply. 2 Kukhova’s Russian name appears in a variety of spellings in the literature, including Kokhlova and Khoklova. 1/3 10845u.doc: first published 2007 CCEA GCE HISTORY OF ART Ballets Russes dancers. They married the following year and JACQUELINE ROQUE a son, Paul, was born to them in 1921. Picasso co-operated Picasso’s final major relationship was with Jacqueline with Satie and Diaghilev on four further productions. As to his Roque. They were together from 1954 until his death in painting, between about 1917 and 1923/4, it oscillates 1973, having married in 1961. It is generally considered that between Synthetic Cubist and Neoclassical in style, the latter Walter and Roque, of all his partners, had the most direct in the manner almost of Ingres. There has been speculation impact on Picasso’s art. that his new responsibilities as a married man, together with Fig. 8 Jacqueline Roque and Picasso. his wife’s very active socialising, helped propel him in this Fig. 3 Three Dancers, 1925; oil on canvas, 215 x 143 cm/ 84.5 x POSTSCRIPT 56.25 in; London, Tate Gallery. Relationships seldom end painlessly and it is worth briefly noting how the women identified above were left. Eva Gouel, as already mentioned, died young of tuberculosis in 1915. direction. Another possible factor was his exposure to Rome and Mediterranean culture generally. In his rather frenetic, Fig. 9 Jacqueline with Black Kitten, 1964; oil on canvas. Synthetic Cubist Three Dancers, 1925, some have seen Picasso laying down a marker that the relationship with his dancer-wife was nearing an end. Olga Kukhova had a nervous breakdown on Picasso leaving her in 1927. She died insane. Dora Maar became a recluse Fig. 4 The Dream, 1932; oil on canvas, 130 x 97 cm; private fixated on Picasso. Marie-Thérèse Walter hanged herself in collection, New York. 1977/8. And Jacqueline Roque-Picasso shot herself in 1986. Other possible points of entry Some other possible entry points to Picasso’s middle and MARIE-THÉRÈSE WALTER late paintings are given below. In 1927, aged 46, he left his wife and son for 17-year-old Fig. 10 Seated Bather, 1930; oil on canvas, 164 x 129 cm/ 64.5 x 51 Marie-Thérèse Walter – some accounts have it that the in; Museum of Modern Art, New York, courtesy of Mrs Simon Guggenheim Fund. Reproduced from Charles Jencks, Post- Modernism, the New Classicism in Art and Architecture, Academy Fig. 5 Girl Before a Mirror, 1932; oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm/ 63.75 Editions, London, 1987, ISBN 0-85670-867-4, p. 38. x 51.25 in; Museum of Modern Art, New York; gift of Mrs Simon Guggenheim. Reproduced from John Canaday, Mainstreams of SURREALISM Modern Art, Thames and Hudson, London, 1959; pre-pagination. Picasso seemed to prefer the company of writers (Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Jean-Paul Sartre, relationship began one or two years earlier. Walter had little André Malraux…) to painters. One of these literary friends of Kukhova’s outgoing, social ambitions. Her quiet submiss- was the poet and leading Surrealist theorist André Breton ive nature and youthful beauty is reflected in some of (Z10821). Picasso himself wrote poetry, with collections Picasso’s greatest paintings, such as The Dream, 1932 (Fig. published in 1935 and 1936, and he also wrote a Surrealist 4), and Girl Before a Mirror, 1932. A daughter, Maya, was play, Le Désir attrapé par la queue, 1941 (Desire Caught by born to the couple in 1935. the Tail). He was never officially one of the Surrealists but his DORA MAAR friendship with Breton, his 1941 play, and many of his paintings and sculptures indicate sympathy with their ideas. Beach scenes of the 1930s, such as Seated Bather, 1930 Fig. 6 Weeping Woman, 1937; oil on canvas, 53.3 x 44.5 cm; (Fig. 10), and Figures By the Sea, 1931, are among works Penrose collection.