Graphics

Young Picasso’s pencil drawings (“Pigeons” (1890) can be considered his first graphic works; then, he continued practicing graphics parallel to creating painting and sculptural compositions as well as those related to applied and decorative arts. His cooperation with “Russian Ballet”, Dyagilev’s ballet company, resulted in creating numerous pencil linear portraits: those of Dyagilev, Bakst, Stravinsky, Sati, de Falla, and Derain as well as more complicated stroked sketches of Myasin, Cocteau and Ansermet where certain caricature features are noticeable. At the same time images of ballet dancers were created in the neoclassical style. But Picasso remains true to himself: if only you enlarge hands, the image of the ballet dancer who is “so airy and appealing for kisses”, turns out to be ironically tinted.

In the 1920s Picasso makes illustrations to books of poems and amuses himself with graphic copies of photographs. In 1927 he illustrates “The Unknown Masterpiece” by Balzac and later creates cycles of graphic works to illustrate “Metamorphoses” by Ovid (1930) and “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes (1934). Classical mythology as a language which can be used to tell about modern times provoked interest of not only men of letters in the 20th century. Mythological images fascinated Picasso as well. In “Metamorphoses” he uses the same laconic outline drawing conveying movement of figures in a few perspectives at the same time. Each composition is framed freehand.

From 1930 to 1936 Picasso creates the so called “Vollard Suite”. Among 100 engravings made for collector Ambroise Vollard, most plates (46) are dedicated to the theme called “the Sculptor’s Studio”. His affair with young Marie-Thérèse Walter was reflected in the series reconsidering the story of Pygmalion and his Galatea ("Sculptor"). The second theme by the number of works (15) is the myth of the Minotaur, a bull-headed man, who can be seen as personification of the artist himself (“the Blind Minotaur, Guided by a Girl”).

In 1937 Picasso creates the anti-fascist series of etchings “Dream and Lie of Franco” and after the war, in 1949, his poster for the World Peace Congress becomes widely known. In the 1940-50s a man with a bull mask appears in lithographs instead of the Minotaur (“Dance of the Banderillas”). Brutality gave way to play. The play was continued by Picasso in the last years of his fruitful life. He started playing with well-known works of art creating their numerous variations including graphic ones. These comprise “Las Meninas” by Velasquez, the “Luncheon on the Grass” by Manet (including that in the linocut technique) and variations on the theme of Ingres’s paintings.

From 1950s to 1970s Picasso was very active. He still worked when he was 80 and 90 years old. In 1968 Picasso created 347 engravings ("Suite 347") in seven months. The artist made one plate each day (sometimes more). Experimenting with techniques he tried pickling, aquatint and dry point. Suite 347 can be considered the master’s diary where fancy and biographical events are intertwined. These include 66 engravings illustrating the piquant novel “La Celestina” by Fernando Rojas, playing with predecessors’ works, theater and circus stories.

Picasso became a mythological Midas in art turning everything he touched into gold. There was an episode which can be an illustrative example: Picasso decided to commission some furniture and drew a sketch of it for a cabinet maker. When asked about the price, the cabinet maker answered it was enough to sign his sketch. Isn’t that a graphic work by the great master?