PICASSO. "WEEPING WOMAN WITH HANDKERCHIEF."   Term Paper ID:22391 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analyzes 1937 work in context of Modernist artist's stylistic, technical & thematic development.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analyzes 1937 work in context of Modernist artist's stylistic, technical & thematic development. Paper Introduction: Pablo Picasso's Weeping Woman with Handkerchief (1937) comes from one of his most productive periods, an era in which he was producing works demonstrating a new emotional tension, a brooding sense of foreboding, and a preoccupation with anguish and despair. His works display a concern with the mythological image of the Minotaur and the images of the dying horse and the weeping woman (Osborne 434). Picasso's works were involved with a new way of depicting perceptions, seeking the essence of a subject rather than a strict recreation of reality. Andre Breton stated that Picasso was an heir to Surrealism (Osborne 424). The art of the time was also much influenced by changes in science and society reflecting less reliance on tradition and a different view of the uncertainties of surface structure, and these conceptions were embodied in the idea of Modernism. Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. It might imply simply what comes after modernism,or it might imply a sense of continuation of modernism in a modified form(Baldick 174-175). New York: Silver Burdett, 199 .Osborne, Harold. Works CitedBaldick, Chris, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. . Answers were not presented directly toissues raised, but instead the artist demanded the participation of theaudience more directly in elucidating meaning and in seeing therelationship between technique and meaning (Baldick 14 ). These "weepingwomen" over time evolved into quasi-surrealist detached heads of greatinventiveness, both in terms of their curvilinear structure and in theircolor. The version of the weeping woman seen in Weeping Woman withHandkerchief is still the more curvilinear version of the early weepingwomen, as opposed to the more angular versions later in the year. The yellow mass of the bodyis balanced by the green of the hat, and the red hair is balanced by therouged cheeks which themselves seem more the result of tears than makeup. In music, Schoenberg experimented with a twelve-tonescale that was different from the traditional octaval structure, andStravinsky and others made an abstract art even more abstract bychallenging accepted notions of harmony, counterpoint, and tonality. The effect of the picture is precisely to convey deep sorrow andanguish, as if life itself had been twisted out of shape by some calamity.The handkerchief in this picture is the unusual element that gives the worka particular poignance and is reminiscent of scenes we have all observedwhen a woman is in despair. the series of screaming heads thuscontinued, independent of the development of Guernica and often in fullcolor until about October 1937. The bombing of Guernica was an act of pure terrorism, as the town had no military importance (MacDonald 64).Picasso supported the Republican cause and was asked to paint a wall-sizedmural form the Spanish Pavilion at the World Exposition in Paris. Pablo Picasso. Science wasdiscovering the uncertainties of existence. Various turns of phrase record these deformations: "her eyes jumped out of her head," a "mouth all screwed up," a face "riddled" with tears. Picasso: Master of the New Idea. Modernism is a term applied retroactively to certain literary andartistic trends at the beginning of the twentieth century. Modernism rejected traditions that existed in thenineteenth century and sought to stretch the boundaries, striking out innew directions and with new techniques. More was demanded of the reader ofliterature or the viewer of art. Pablo Picasso's Weeping Woman with Handkerchief (1937) comes from oneof his most productive periods, an era in which he was producing worksdemonstrating a new emotional tension, a brooding sense of foreboding, anda preoccupation with anguish and despair. In the theater, playwrights suchas Pirandello and Brecht delved into abstract structures and borrowed fromthe abstractions of other cultures--notably Oriental forms such as theJapanese Noh drama--to escape from the realism of the theater of thenineteenth century. New York: Atheneum, 1986.MacDonald, Patricia A. Civil war had broken out inSpain in 1936 between the supporters of the Spanish Republic andconservatives who wanted to restore the Spanish monarchy. The disjointed time sense, the flight from theconventions of realism, and the adoption of complex new forms and styles inthe modernist period were undertaken to provide new meaning, to illuminatethe world in a different way, and to show different relationships withinthe observed world. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art. The colors emphasize the grotesque nature of themoment and evoke a sense of sorrow and loss. Inpainting it was seen in the abstractions of artists as widely varied asDuchamps, Picasso, Klee, and many others. The termpostmodernism has been applied to culture after 196 , but the terminologyis somewhat ambiguous. His boldest work in the late 193 s came just before the WeepingWoman, and this was the political statement in response to the Germanbombing of a small Spanish village, Guernica. In order to make certain the painting evoked a strong and personalemotion, Picasso sought to minimize his own involvement in its meaning andto leave it to the viewer to decide for him or herself. New York: Oxford University Press, 199 .mBernadac, Marie-Laure and Paule du Bouchet. this image is derived from Spanish art,dominated by the faces of Mater Dolorosa (Our Lady of Sorrows), etched withtears. The features of DoraMaar, who was then Picasso's constant companion, were evident in thesepictures as well: The agony of the mother with her dead child, by a process of transformation well known in Picasso's earlier work, now became a characteristic of the many faces of a weeping woman that continued in his painting even into the following years (Chipp 1 9). Picasso's Guernica. Andre Breton stated that Picasso wasan heir to Surrealism (Osborne 424). He accomplished this in different ways in differentworks. The other hand is seen in the foreground, with the fingerstwisted in a sort of rigor of pain and anguish. The atomic world showed thatthe reality we perceive through the sense is not the only reality.Psychology was showing that behavior was more complex than previouslyimagined and that there was an entire world of relationships and forcesthat was hidden. Twowriters describe the usual form as follows: One eye in profile, the other full face, the nose sideways, the chin twisted in an angular or bloated face surmounted by a grotesque hat: This is the way most people see Picasso's painting (Bernadac and Bouchet 113).They indicate one reason for these deformations of the face with referenceto a different version of the weeping woman: When a strong emotion is felt, it is often experienced in terms of physical and visual transformations. Thisversion is on the smaller black paper of the later works and has thebeginnings of the angular shapes in the hat on the woman's head, a seriesof triangles making up a headpiece, and in the square shape of the body.the neck is also a triangular shape, while the face has the look of apalette or other curved surface. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.----------------------- 1 In part, thiswas a response to the discovery and dissemination of ideas from psychologyshowing the complexities of human experience in a new light. Abrams, 1986.Chipp, Herschel B. The next series of isolated heads was produced on smaller sheets ofpaper with a nearly square proportion, and the hard shiny surface andlinenlike texture of this paper allowed a wider range of color density andgreater intensity with the crayons. Becauseof Guernica, he picked total warfare as his theme (MacDonald 63-64). The art of the time was also muchinfluenced by changes in science and society reflecting less reliance ontradition and a different view of the uncertainties of surface structure,and these conceptions were embodied in the idea of Modernism. One of histechniques to achieve this was to minimize the use of color (Lyttle 135).Guernica would lead to the Weeping Woman with Handkerchief in that it was awork in which Picasso developed new ideas and images, one of which was theweeping-woman image (Lyttle 137). The ambiguities and uncertainties that this new knowledgecreated was expressed in different ways by artists in different fields. The first series of these heads were covered with thinly appliedwax that tended to highlight the high-keyed primary colors: They seem amputated owing to their isolation and give the impression of being deformed and undeveloped embryos composed of bulging nodules (Chipp 1 8). They originated inthe overall work with the screaming mother, but the heads over a period offour months became progressively less related to Guernica. His works display a concern withthe mythological image of the Minotaur and the images of the dying horseand the weeping woman (Osborne 434). . Pablo Picasso. Franco was givenassistance by Nazi Germany and the oppressive fascist government of Italy: In 1937, the Spanish dictator ordered German planes to bomb the northern town of Guernica. Female heads as painted by Picasso in the 193 s and 194 s had acertain similarity in structure and in the way he broke down the parts ofthe head and rearranged them in order to show two sides at once. Picasso's works were involved with anew way of depicting perceptions, seeking the essence of a subject ratherthan a strict recreation of reality. Themouth is twisted so that the pointed teeth show in a sort of grimace.Tears drop from both eyes. By June of 1937, however, the heads hadstarted to take on the particularities of an individual face with angularfeatures, an agonized expression, and moist eyes. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.Lyttle, Richard B. The hat frames the head,which itself is twisted and deformed to show both eyes at once though theface is in profile. In preparatory sketches for Guernica, Picasso increasingly usedcolor crayons in producing a series of female hears. Picasso believed that symbols meant different things to differentpeople and so that the meaning of a painting should be discovered by theindividual, without reference to anyone else and without seeking the answerfrom the artist. Picasso showed in his entire series of weepingwomen a considerable sense of the way grief affects the woman and alsoconsiderable inventiveness in showing different aspects of this oneemotion. New York: Harry N. These are the sorts of mixed feelings Picasso tried to express through painting (Bernadac and Bouchet 115).Such deformations are apparent in Weeping Woman with Handkerchief. The huge handkerchief creates a mass to theright of the face and is itself twisted as if a hand were inside holding itup to the nose. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.