![]() ![]() These two characters seem to represent the artist or the Beautiful Girl, interchangeably, as they were when children, or as they are forced by circumstances back into a childish frame of mind. There is also a Little Boy, who reminds one very much of his feminine counterpart. Or she leads the artist, in his role as the blind Minotaur, to safety. She peers at the scene, or shields her eyes, or looks away, and often holds a light which helps to illumine it. The most moving witness is a Little Girl. And indeed a witness, or onlookers, are important parts of many episodes. The scenes he depicts can be witnessed by the very people taking part in them, as themselves, in another mood, in another role, or at another age. The graphic medium offers yet another opportunity not readily available to the writer. Juxtaposition and fusion provide the artist with an enormous vocabulary, and thus allow him to describe the most complicated situations with a minimum of means. Thus the Beautiful Girl becomes the cutest of centauresses, one sees her abstracted with a horse's head, or she wakes to see her horse through a curtained window. As it is graphic, the artist can juxtapose, or fuse, animals and people with an ease and celerity impossible in words. The natures of, and the relationship between the Mare and the Bull, so reminiscent of the Corrida, are essential aspects of this work. She manages equally well lying nude or semi-nude, in an attitude of abandon, on the back of a bull, or on the Mare which is her symbol and antithesis. As a toreador she is charming, as a girl dressed in man's clothing can be. She does not know that she is identified, in the artist's mind, with a horse, and with a matador, and this is surely just as well. Take her to a beach, give her some wine, play her some music, and she will abandon herself to a tremendously seductive dance, in which she displays her charms to the full. Otherwise she tends to be unconcerned, passive, and silent. ![]() Her demands are for attention, and for sex. She plays, occasionally, with a cat or a cupid. A mirror is her favorite plaything, or she will gaze enraptured at a statue of herself. While her occupation does not allow of clothes, she does love to adorn herself with necklaces and belts made of flowers, with jewelry, and particularly with hats. ![]() His familiarity with them, together with his incredible facility as a draftsman, explain why he has been able to produce this monumental work, along with other hundreds of drawings, paintings, sculptures and ceramics, unrelated, or only casually related, to its theme. They have developed over the years, and a few have been added, as the exigencies of the medium and. Picasso has created, and remained faithful to, one set. The device which provides continuity is a specific cast of characters. It also reminds one of the 16th Century English masque, that wordless entertainment on a classical theme.īecause he is dealing in pictures, rather than in words, each page of this work must stand alone, as well as relate to episodes in the past, and to come. ![]() Taken as a whole it is inward looking, autobiographical and experimental, and thus it reminds one of the works of Proust and Joyce. Now that we have them by the hundreds it becomes apparent that he has been up to the graphic artist's equivalent of writing a novel. Seen as isolated works of art, as powerful, or beautiful, or charming, or above all as witty, they are rewarding enough. They have appeared in large numbers, but sporadically, since about 1905. Most of the pages of this extended exposition are in a graphic medium, etching, dry point, lithograph, engraving, or some combination of these techniques. A theme to which Picasso has returned over and over again is the nature of, and the relationship between, the sexes. ![]()
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