Example of 20th century humanities [course number] essay

[Professor]

Techniques used by Pablo Picasso – “ The Violin” and “ Guitar, Sheet Music and Wine Glass”
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He was an artistic genius who employed several techniques to portray his talent. In the course of his transformation to also being a modern artist, he is famous for co-founding the Cubist movement along with Georges Braque. His works “ The Violin” and “ Guitar, Sheet Music and Wine Glass” are brilliant examples of this period.
Picasso’s “ The Violin” (1912), was created using Braques’ method of papiers colles displaying Synthetic Cubism. It meant he works in a very economical fashion using a bit of newspaper, a few strokes and charcoal hatchings to finish this painting. With an irregularly cut newspaper stuck on a canvas, he drew a violin’s curved head. Following the concepts of Analytical Cubism he added formal lines that only hinted at the shape of a violin. He has enhanced the scrap of paper with charcoal hatchings. This is one of his finest examples of intelligent Cubist pieces. Here, one can perceive the shape of the violin only momentarily to find it immediately destroyed again. There is a beautiful and subtle tension in the painting that seems to take us through a quick but amazing tour of discovery.
Picasso’s “ Guitar, Sheet Music and Wine Glass” (1912) was also an exemplary painting created using the papiers colles method exhibiting Synthetic Cubism. This was an ink collage put together using seven bits of paper on a background of wallpaper on a cardboard. The pieces include a composition representing a guitar which is hanging on a wall. A part of the guitar’s body is shown only as a negative defined by the pieces of paper around it. He added a circle for the sound hole, thus giving one the impression of a hollow instrument. With this he brought forward a recessed form of the guitar in one’s mind. The wine glass however is again Cubist and drawn over a rectangular sheet of white paper. Both the guitar and the wine glass have curved profiles defined on the left and straight profiles on the right, which can be viewed as relational. It is very interesting that every element of this work, can be looked at in isolation, while doing so they seem to bring forward a character of their own, while when viewed all at once they seem to come together beautifully on the wallpaper background, thus offering several layers in a seemingly single piece of art. This work can be a collage of miniature figures yet a beautiful orchestra of symphonies that comes together.