renaissance man
I gathered together most of my Picasso library just now. I know there are some titles that are missing. Not sure offhand where they are?
But it’s nice to see most of them together. And a reminder that as well as looking at the pictures – the main reason for having most of these books – I may also want to read some of them!
Wow! We’re watching Monty Don’s Around The World In 80 Gardens, again. He’s in Mexico, and he starts in the brutally but beautifully modernist settings of three Luis Barragan buildings.
I love old traditional – conservative, even (note small ‘c’!) – art and architecture. And old grand homes. A lot of this kind of modernism leaves me cold. But this stuff? It blows my mind. And I think I mean that in the fellatio sense…
The use of colour and water, and the attention to small details, as well as the huge slabs of colour… breathtaking.
Truly astonishing stuff. And, despite the intellectualism and grandeur, very – to me at least – warmly human.
The use of the hot oranges and pinks… it is soooo divine.
Are those monumental pillars real? And look at the guy… he took himself seriously, bless him.
The architect had the large lectern you can see above, as a place where he’d display inspirational images.
By contrast, Los Pazos, by Edward James? Well, that’s for another post…
Bought this beauty today. The fourth – and as far as I know? – final JPiF tome on the mighty Picasso. This gets the fuller than full six stars. For being an utterly wonderful treasure trove of mind-blowing creativity.
This book highlights for me why having plenty of books on one particular artist – especially when that artist is Picasso – can be very useful. Here, ‘Women & Children By The Sea’, which gets a full colour reproduction in Picasso 1932 (see below), only appears as a small, almost incidental, black and white image.
The same goes for ‘The Rescue’, which you see on this other recent post of mine.
One of the many things I love about Picasso – perhaps the core and most fundamental thing? – is his unbelievably prodigious creativity. I may not – indeed I certainly do not – like all of his art.
What I absolutely adore, however, is the off the charts energy and creativity. He bothers and reworks ideas multiple times, in multiple ways. And he employs multiple styles, even multiple modes: painting, drawing, prints, sculpture, ceramics, collage, to do so.
Almost inevitably – and especially so with such huge talent – this seemingly unfiltered scattershot approach yields a great deal of wonderful work.
Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that Picasso is almost singular; unique in his astonishing bravery, to work as freely as he does. I know of no other artist who produces such a variety of art.
One of the things that had me really bummed out about art and me, was my inability, as I saw it, to reduce my own polyglot interests to a singular marketable style.
Picasso teaches me, gives me permission by example, to be much freer, multifaceted and… here’s a key revelation, to not know. This connects back to that Tove Jansson Moomin cartoon, where he dons a beret and steps off a cliff!
Perhaps I feel vindicated, in that I have never liked, trusted or believed in the smug certainties that so much of the world presents to us. Picasso seems more real and human, because of the universe that’s inside of him, that comes out through his art.
By contrast, most ‘professional’ art limits the maker and their humanity to much narrower margins. Of course the art produced in this more common manner can still be sublime. Indeed, the singular concentration produces a different type of artistic excellence.
But it remains true, at least for me, that you can’t have the very unusual kind of genius that was or is Picasso, without the freedom and the diversity that mark him out.
*Another example of a piece I love, and recently utilised, this time ‘Woman Sleeping on a Red Cushion’, that appears here in a lesser light than in Picasso 1932.
PS – Picasso was always fairly unabashed about sex. And in this volume the phallic element is possibly more ‘in your face’, literally and metaphorically, than any other. A topic I will be turning to some time fairly soon!
To finish… two heads are better than one, runs a certain saying.
Once again I’m mining the rich seams of Picasso. In this case a series of Crucifixions, that he had in turn based on Matthias Grunewald’s famous Isenheim Altarpiece.
Step by step…
I like having a record of the steps along the way. As sometimes there’s alternative stuff that might be worth pursuing further.
I’m happy with both of these, to some degree. I feel like there are decent threads to be developed. But I’m not so sure I’m quite there yet.
Of the two the black and white seems stronger, to me. At least as it stands.
Rex at The Granary did a great job framing these. And at a very reasonable price, as well.
I picked Teresa up after work, and we then dropped the two pieces to Dan & Amy (& co.), at home.
Blah…
When these two discs first reached me, along with Hermeto Pascoal’s (?), I must admit I was slightly disappointed. The Pascoal album is a bit too whacked out/free jazz for me, in places (read about that disc elsewhere). And these Airto ones were – so I thought at first – a bit manic, and all over the place.
But I’ve been listening to them more, in the car, whilst I’m working. And they’re really growing on me. The sheer talent of the players, and the rather unique blend of Brazilian music, jazz, and the general melting-pot that was jazz rock fusion of ‘70s sounds – esp’ on labels like CTI – adds up to something that’s always interesting, frequently impelling, and occasionally sublime.
Virgin Land kick’s off with ‘Stanley’s Tune‘, named for bassist Stanley Clarke, whose groovy bass riff propels the piece.
Clarke switches to upright bass for the modal jam ‘Musikana’, which also features lots of Airto jungle-noise type vocalising, without him ever singing. Flora Purim also adds her typically higher more ethereal wordless vocalising. Another key sound in this piece is the droning of berimbau, an instrument Airto often uses.
Track three is the title number, which seems to emerge from a foggy or misty jungle soundscape, out of the previous number. Before going into a galloping bass and drum figure, over which Airto and electric guitar sing, in unison, once again wordlessly.
I do love this kind of syncopated propulsive groove. It’s an ideal modal bedrock for jazzy instrumental soloing and exploration. Stanley Clarke goes into a bass part that reminds me of Santana’s Doug Rauch, when Carlos and Co (and Airto worked with them around this time, e.g. on Borboletta!) were at their peak.
Next up, ‘Peasant Dance’, a real oddity. It certainly is here, but prob’ would be on almost any 1970s jazz fusion type disc. By Bulgarian keys player Milcho Leviev, it’s based around lines that very clearly evoke Eastern European folk melodies, as befits the title.
Despite the eclecticism of this already diverse brand of musical fusion, distinctly Eastern European stuff is still a rarity. Do I actually like it, tho’? I have to say, I do. The combo of trilling chirping melodies, and the unusual voices of clarinet, oboe and piccolo, all over a rather funky background, work surprisingly well. Also, it’s short and sweet, not wearing out it’s welcome.
Next up is the much mellower ‘Lydian Riff’. This follows ‘Peasant Dance’ well, maintaining the slightly skewed – spooky even? – melodic vibes, while transitioning into something sonically more ‘normal’-ish. There are some occasional stabs, which remind me a little of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Eighty One’.
Track six, ‘Hot Sand’ resumes that percolating groove we encountered on ‘Virgin Land’, with wordless vocals again. Only this time we get a section punctuated with stop-start hits. And, as well as an acoustic piano, in the rhythm section, there’s monophonic synth and electric guitar, taking modal solos.
The album closes with ‘I Don’t Have To Do What I Don’t Want To Do’ – a great if rather long or cumbersome title! – which, like ‘Lydian Riff’, after Peasant Dance, slows the tempo down. A compositional collaboration between Airto and guitarist (?) DeLorme, I love what DeLorme brings to the piece, his axe sounding rather berimbau-like at times. And the ‘water bag’ wah-wah like effect, combined with fuzzy distortion!? What a fab sound!
All in all, not Earth-shattering, but very, very good. Definitely worth having and listening to.
Of the two Airto albums that I’m looking at and listening to here, this is the more ‘straight ahead’, vocally speaking. Inasmuch as there’s singing, and not just of the wordless variety, such as we hear on Virgin Land, but actual sung lyrics.
Blah…
The back cover of Virgin Land, and some other Airto albums I don’t, as yet, have on CD:
I love Picasso, and his Vesuvian creativity. It has to be admitted, however, that in amongst this Herculean outpouring there is plenty that might be called ugly, even brutish.
The picture on the cover of this book is, to my way of seeing things, coming from that end of his creative spectrum: it’s not just the yellow teeth, stubbly chin, and bloodshot eyes, it’s also the colours, and the handling of the paint.
But ultimately these facets are just more, amongst so many of the legion reasons I think Picasso is top of the list for candidates of the ‘greatest artist that ever lived’ soubriquet.
This near A4 sized but quite slim volume (mine is paperback), catalogues a National Gallery show on the theme of Picasso ‘Challenging The Past’. Or, put another way, Picasso in context.
Given that Pablo is such a massive influence on me, it behoves me to explore further what influenced him. Of course, I’ve done this before, many times. But there’s no reason not to return to such rich seams. And having a book that focuses specifically on this aspect of his work – and inevitably therefore, of the work of other artists – seems the perfect moment.
Perhaps even more so given my current rebirth of artistic creativity and activity, during which Picasso – as ever, with me – has been such a fundamental inspiration, and resource.
Why, it was only a few days ago I was working on my version of Picasso’s take on Velazquez ‘Las Meninas’.
I visited a guy – Rex – in Christchurch, today, who runs a framing business from his home. He has taken on the job of framing the pictures Dan and Amy selected, from the five or six ‘preparatory sketches’ I did in my sketch pad.
In the end they requested two of those actual pieces. I’d been thinking they’d pick one, and I’d re/do it, slightly larger. But the studies have become the actual artworks! Which is ok with me.
I also had my local print shop run off slightly enlarged prints of the two pieces Dan and Amy selected. So we can have copies framed and hung at home. I bought cheaper off-the shelf frames for these, at the Wisbech Dunelm.
Discussing framing with Rex, at The Granary, he revealed that the four fundamental tools he uses – never mind all the consumables and other sundries, etc – were a £5-6,000 investment!
I’d like to be able to do framing myself – and have done, within my limited capacity – to save money. But hey-ho, it’s catch 22, as ever. Still, for now I’ve ordered the red cutter pictured above.
That will at least allow me to customise the card ‘window’ mount bits. Which I’ll need to do with the two slightly enlarged D&A reprints, when framing them.
I have to say, it all feels good, this getting back on the Art Horse!
It’s always a little bit traumatic, cutting art works out of a sketchbook. But Dan and Amy wanted two, and wanted the originals, not prints. Nor even a larger reworking.
I’ve scanned all the pics that I’ve removed from the sketch pad. And I’ve got the local printers to do slight enlargements of the two chosen pieces (for Teresa and I to have up at home, possibly?).