20 Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Liz Zelencich
Program Manager
Join us online at: http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/2291712/newspapers-in-education/
Pablo Picasso was born on
October 25, 1881 in Malaga,
Spain. He was the rst child
of Don Jose Ruiz y Blasco, an
art teacher, and Maria Picasso
y Lopez. At an early age Pablo
showed an interest in drawing.
His rst words were "piz, piz",
which is short for "lapiz", the
Spanish word for pencil.
At the age of 7, Pablo began
receiving art instruction from
his father. His father believed
that an artist's training should
include copying the masters and
drawing the human body from
plaster casts and live models.
The precision of Pablo's painting
technique grew until it soon
surpassed that of his father.
In 1895, Pablo's father
accepted a position at
Barcelona's School of Fine Arts.
He asked ofcials to allow his
son to take the entrance exam.
The ofcials were impressed with
Pablo's abilities and admitted him
to the academy. As a student he
lacked discipline but made friends
and continued to grow as an artist.
At the age of 16, Pablo
was enrolled in Spain's most
distinguished art school, Madrid's
Royal Academy of San Fernando.
However, his instruction at the
Royal Academy lasted only a short
time as he struggled to accept
formal instruction. In spite of these
difculties, his time in Madrid was
not wasted. Pablo visited Madrid's
museums and saw the paintings
of Diego Velasquez and Francisco
Goya, though it was the works of El
Greco that he admired most.
In 1900, Picasso made his rst
trip to Paris. At that time Paris was
considered to be the art capitol of
Europe. While in Paris, Picasso's
work began to attract the attention
of art collectors. By 1905, he had
become a favourite of American art
collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein. It
was through them that Picasso met
French artist Henri Matisse. The
two became lifelong friends.
Pablo Picasso died on April
8, 1973, in Mougins, France.
He is best remembered as the
co-founder of cubism, and for
cubist works Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon (1907), Three Musicians
(1921) and Guernica (1937). As a
young boy, Pablo Picasso was a
genius whose skills became a huge
power that greatly affected the art
of the 20th century.
Pablo
Picasso
The genius of
The history of collage is almost as old as
paper. But for hundreds of years it was not
considered an art technique. It was used for
decoration or to make crafts. During the 20th
century the cubist painters Pablo Picasso and
Georges Braque, rediscovered the process
and used it for their artwork.
The word collage comes from the French:
coller, meaning to glue. The name was rst
used at the beginning of the 20th century
when collage became a distinctive part of
modern art.
Techniques of collage were rst used at
the time of the invention of paper in China
around 200BC. Many people didnt use
collage until the 210th century in Japan,
when calligraphers began to apply glued
paper as texts on surfaces when writing their
poems.
Collage is a technique where the artwork is
made from a collection of different materials
and techniques to make a new piece.
A collage may sometimes include cut outs
from newspapers and magazines, ribbons
and fabric, bits of paper, texts, photographs
and bits and pieces which are then glued
to a piece of paper or a canvas or any other
surface.
Today, collage is a favourite art technique
used by many illustrators and artists.
Collage
Why is this woman crying?
What is in her hand and
mouth? Why is she so broken?
Where do you think she's
from? Is she sad or angry?
What would you do to make
her smile?
Picasso was an inventive
artist; he didn't want to make
paintings in the usual way
as the others did. Instead of
following tradition to depict
things as they appeared to
the eyes from one angle, he
portrayed things from multiple
viewpoints in one picture. The
result is like the painting or
the object had been cut up
and then put back in random
order. This famous abstract
style is called cubism.
Three Musicians features a
harlequin, a pierrot, and a monk.
These 3 characters are believed to
represent Pablo Picasso, and two
others who were close friends of
Picasso in the 1910s.
What is happening in this
picture? What objects can you nd?
Three Musicians
(1905) Collage
Self Portrait (1907) is painted in
a typical cubist style. The portrait
shows possible inuences of African
art, with large eyes and mask-like
face, which fascinated Picasso.
Self Portrait
(1907) Oil on canvas
Picasso was already 56 years old when he painted
the Weeping Woman - about 30 years after
cubism was invented. The Woman in the painting
was Dora Marr, a photographer who had a very
close relationship with Picasso. When Dora Marr's
father passed away, the image of her crying must
have left a deep impression in Picasso's mind.
However, Picasso did not want to show us how she
looked, but he wanted to show us how she felt.
He used very strong and direct images that evoke
imagination of someone bursting or being torn into
parts.
In the painting, we could see quite a lot of
sharp edges and contrasting colours. The woman's
eyes are wide-opened, her tears streaming down
in clear drops, and she was biting a handkerchief
which she holds tightly in her hands. Her shattered
image reminds us of a broken mirror and her
distorted face seems to suggest to us how painful
she is. The painting seems to have made a good
impression of our daily expressions such as "break
down", "burst to tears" and "go to pieces", when
describing someone in despair.
With his unusual style, Picasso went beyond
the surface to express complex emotions such as
grief, outrage, terror, etc. that the viewers are able
to relate to.
NIE Activity
Use the newspaper to make
a collage of your own artwork
based on one of Picassos
paintings. You could choose
to do The Weeping Woman or
perhaps The Three Musicians.
Maybe you would like to create
your own collage based on your
own ideas.
In the early 1900s, some artists
became interested in African and
native American art. The styles of
those cultures inspired cubism.
Cubism began in France in
1907. Pablo Picasso and George
Braque began painting gures
that were made up of cubes,
spheres, cylinders, cones, and
other geometric shapes. The
paintings looked like someone
had cut them up and glued them
back together.
And thats exactly what the
cubists had in mind. Just like
the ancient Egyptians, cubists
wanted to show the most
important parts of the things they
painted. Look at the face in Juan
Gris' Portrait of Picasso (above).
Gris shows you every detail of
Picasso's face even though you
would never be able to see all
sides of his face at the same
time. The cubists took this idea
much further than the ancient
Egyptians, of course. Cubists
wanted to show all the sides of
an object in the same picture.
Cubism
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