sign in sign up
<<
Home , Pablo Picasso

Masterpiece: Enamel Saucepan by Pablo (1881-1973)

Keywords: Abstract, Realistic, , Grade: 6th Month: September Activity: Geometric Still Life

Meet the Artist:  He was born Pablo Ruiz in Malaga, on Oct 25, 1881, and died in 1973. He later adopted his mother’s more distinguished maiden name-Picasso-as his own. Though Spanish by birth, he lived most of his life in .  He was a child prodigy. At the age of fourteen, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine after completing the exam in one day (a task that usually took one month to complete).  His father was an artist and teacher at the local school. He wanted Picasso to become a great artist some day.  His published prints total approximately 2,000 different images pulled from metal, stone and other media.  Picasso's painting changed more over the period of his life than any other great artist. He was always trying new and different things.  When his best friend died, Picasso felt alone and sad and all his paintings during this time contained lots of . This was called his Blue Period.  Picasso's Blue Period ended when he fell in love with a girl named Fernande. This was the beginning of the Rose Period.  Picasso and a friend (, 1882-1963) developed the cubism style of painting. This means that Picasso painted people and things very differently than how they really looked. He painted people who had eyes and noses in the wrong places. Picasso's father even thought that his paintings were too strange.  Every progressive painter, whether French, German, Belgian, or American, soon took up Cubism, and the style became the dominant one of at least the first half of the 20th century. In 1913, in New York, the new style was introduced at an at the midtown armory - the famous - which caused a sensation.  Picasso was the first living artist to have an exhibition at the . He was chosen as one of Time magazine's one hundred most influential people of the twentieth century. Masterpiece: Enamel Saucepan by (1881-1973)

 He was a great painter, but he was great at other things too. He made , prints, , dishes and bowls, and even costumes and scenery for plays. Picasso lived to be 92 years old.

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.” - Pablo Picasso "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." - Pablo Picasso Definitions:  Cubism: The paintings are not supposed to look real, the artist uses geometric shapes to show what he is trying to paint  Abstract: art which depicts subject matter with simplified or symbolic forms (triangles, circles, etc.).  Realistic: the lifelike depiction of subjects, without embellishment or interpretation (if they have a wart, paint it).  Still-Life: a work of art depicting inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, plants and natural substances like rocks) or man-made (drinking glasses, cigarettes, pipes, hotdogs and so on).

About the Work:  Enamel Saucepan (1945) is a good example of Synthetic Cubism, one of two branches of cubism that Picasso and Braque first developed in 1907. This style of painting was more about how the artist broke down the image into planes and facets, showing an object from several angles at once and less about the image having symbolic meaning. Synthetic Cubism, used more decorative shapes, stenciling, , and brighter colors.  Enamel Saucepan is generally regarded as a still life without any symbolic meaning.

Possible Questions:  Enamel Saucepan looks like a weird painting because it has a lot of weird shapes, what geometric shapes do you see? (Circles, triangles)  On the candles it has tons of shapes, what do you see a lot of? (Triangles)  This painting is not a portrait or a . Do you know what it is called? (It's a still life).  Does this picture look realistic?  What textures do you see in this painting? (The pan looks rough and the candle looks bumpy and the pitcher looks very rough.)  What colors do you see? Masterpiece: Enamel Saucepan by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Activity: Geometric Still Life Materials needed: 9 x 12 white construction paper, oil pastels, pencils and rulers. Process: 1. Discuss Picasso’s Cubist work Enamel Pan. 2. Starting with a 9" x 12" paper, have the students draw a vase that takes up most of the paper. To help with making a symmetrical shape, you can hand out scrap paper that is about 5" x 8", fold it in half, have them draw their vase and cut. This can be used as a template, if desired. After the vase is traced, a few simple flowers are added on top. 3. Using a ruler, the is dissected by drawing about 7 or 8 rotating lines all the way across the paper. The goal is to have a lot of medium size shapes to color. 4. All of the shapes inside the vase and flowers are colored with warm colors: red, orange and yellow. All of the shapes on the outside are colored with cool colors: blue, green and purple. The students are to color all the shapes lightly first, and then chose one corner that gets shaded darker with the same color. 5. Have students write their name and room number on the back.

If at the end you shade the corners of each shape you make, you get a softer and more sophisticated abstraction.