ART SOURCES FOR PICASSO'S WORK

by John Warren Oakes

With keen insight and a masterful grasp of the import of Picasso's artistic creation,
John Warren Oakes accurately assesses multiple sources of inspiration for this twentieth-century giant
of the art world. From seventeeenth-century masters to African sculpture and Picasso's European
contemporaries, Oakes pins down the who and the where of origin. Most frequently, he cites Picasso's
French near-contemporaries, Eugene Delacroix and Dominique Ingres, less frequently, the earlier
Domenikos El Greco and Francisco de Zurbaran of Spain.
For the intricate complexities of Picasso's major masterpieces, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and
Guernica, Oakes dubs him "the time-traveler," charting the course of his inspiration back to Iberian and
Egyptian incarnations in sculpture and painting that express emotions ranging through sexuality,
violence and horror. In his detailed comparison between Picasso's drawing Encre de Chine and
Antonio Tempesta's engraving Victory of Joshua (1613), John Oakes cites sixteen incidents of direct
inspiration; he finds fourteen such incidents from the same engraving in a painting by Ingres, entitled
Venus Wounded by Diomedes, proving the prevalence at the time of the practice of adaptation from
existing artworks. In turn, this work by Ingres played a dominant role in the creation of the immortal
work Guernica, along with extensive possible associations traced to Rembrandt, Poussin, Durer,
Bassano, Rubens, Delacroix, Raphael and Mantegna.
What a fascinating and complex network of ties and connections among major artists of several
centuries has been revealed by John Warren Oakes!
Louise Sheldon MacDonald
Louise Sheldon MacDonald was an art reviewer for Museum and Arts Washington and The World and I
in Washington, D.C. She also wrote on the arts for the Baltimore Chronicle and the Baltimore Sun in
Baltimore, Maryland. She served as an Associate Editor of Smithsonian magazine and as an Assistant
Editor of LIFE magazine.
The discoveries of sources for the work of Picasso place John Warren Oakes among the world's
leading authorities on Picasso."
Helen Dow, Ph.D. Professor of Art, University of Iowa School of Art and Art History

Copyright Notice
The text and illustrations of this book are copyrighted and restricted to
educational and academic purposes and may not be used for commercial
purposes.
Mallen, Enrique, ed. Online Picasso Project. Sam Houston State University. 19972015.
https://picasso.shsu.edu/index.php?view=Copyright
Artists Rights Society
65 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 420-9160
http://www.arsny.com
Copyright 2015
by John Warren Oakes
Sedona, Arizona
Ethereal Publications
Sedona, Arizona

Cover Art
Composite by John Warren Oakes of:
Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso.
Holy Trinity by El Greco, and
Diana and Actaeon by Titian

ART SOURCES FOR PICASSO'S WORK

AN ARTIST'S SEARCH FOR SOURCES IN THE WORK OF PICASSO
by
John Warren Oakes
A.B., M.A., M.F.A., C.A.A.

Introduction

What fundamentally is a painter? He's a collector who wishes to obtain a collection by

making himself the paintings of others he likes. It's like that, and then it becomes
something else
--Pablo Picasso (qtd. in Lucas 37).

Picasso's definition of a painter recreating the artwork of others describes

a process he used throughout his career as he adapted and transformed the
work of artists whom he admired. In fact, he borrowed compositions, themes,
and ideas from other artists. He used his fertile imagination and memory to
generate images from forms and figures he saw in the work of both his
contemporaries and his predecessors. Picasso's friend Maurice Raynal wrote
that "Picasso looked for the essence of things in other works of art, and he realized that
in order to distill this essence himself, the most advanced starting point was not reality
and nature but the work of others (Raynal qtd. in Blunt 5).
Many of Picasso's innovations can be explained by this procedure.
Throughout his long career, from the early influence of Spanish painting, French
Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism prior to 1900 to Picasso's late studies
based on the "Maids of Honor" by Velazquez and the "Women of Algiers" by
Delacroix, there is a continued utilization of art which he studied and esteemed.
In addition to being cognizant of trends and involved with other writers and
artists in his own time, Picasso was strongly attracted to the art of the past. He
had in his personal collection works by Cezanne, Courbet, Degas, Gauguin,

LeNain, Matisse, and others. To him, true art was timeless, as he said in 1935:
To me there is no past or future in art. If a work of art cannot live always in the present
it must not be considered at all. The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great
painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today
than it ever was (qtd. in Barr 272-73).
Susan Grace Galassi commented His many remarks on copying the works of
others give insight into his understanding of this paradoxical relationship and its
importance to him. (Galassi 20). For an artist to be influenced by the work of
others is not unusual; most artists know the work of the past and participate in
their own milieu. This aspect of Picasso's career has been previously discussed
by many scholars, among them Sir Anthony Blunt and Phoebe Pool in Picasso:
The Formative Years: a study of his sources, Sir Roland Penrose in Picasso: His
Life and Work, and Susan Grace Galassi in Picasso's Variations on the Masters:
Conversations With the Past. It is my contention, however, that Picasso went far
beyond influence and immersion, what we might think of as ordinary give-andtake among artists, to finding the very source of his inspiration and the raw
materials of form in the works of others.
However, to be clear from the start, Picasso was no mere copyist. In working
from the paintings of other artists, he made them his own by absorbing and
transforming them, in the process often generating a new style or image.
In speaking about his artistic process, Picasso was open about this way of
working. The laws of composition, he said, are never new, they are always someone
else's (qtd. in Penrose 336). In the same vein, in 1952 he made this comment
about his debt to Velazquez Suppose you just want to copy "Las Meninas." If I
were to set myself to copying it, there would come a moment when I would say to
myself: Now what would happen if I put that figure a little more to the left? And I
would go ahead and try it, in my own way, without attending anymore to Velazquez.
This experiment would surely lead me to modify the light or to arrange it differently,
from having changed the position of a figure. So little by little I would proceed to make a
picture, "Las Meninas", which for any painter who specialized in copying would be no
good. It wouldn't be the "Meninas" as they appear to him in Velazquez's canvas. It
would be my "Meninas (Picasso qtd. in Leymarie 273).

For Picasso, the art of the masters even replaced living models. In fact, he
rarely worked from the live model. There are numerous works in this book
containing a figure or a group of figures, the models for whom are found in the
work of the masters. Leo Stein, who was a close friend of Picasso's during these
years, recalled that Picasso did not use models during the Iberian period, and he
implied that this had been Picasso's practice for a long time (Stein 174).
Picasso researched or used from memory art of the past in order to help
him express the present. In his "Guernica" of 1937, Picasso combined subjects,
shapes, and areas from numerous sources to help him develop his solution. This
research insured the inclusion of elements related to the finest works of art as
part of his compositions. He was a master of mixing all this together so that his
work was created on a solid foundation.
Perhaps Picasso (qtd. in Barr 273) explains it best We must pick out what is
good for us where we find it--except from our own works. I have a horror of copying
myself. But when I am shown a portfolio of old drawings, for instance, I have no qualms
about taking anything I want from them. Helene Parmelin (Picasso qtd. in
Parmelin 43) quoted Picasso as saying, What does it mean, . . . for a painter to
paint in the manner of so-and-so or to actually imitate someone else? What's wrong
with that? On the contrary, it's a good idea. You should constantly try to paint like
someone else. But the thing is, you can't! You would like to. You try. But it turns out to
be a botch . . . . And it's at the very moment you make a botch of it that you're
yourself.
Picasso told us what he was doing. Have we ignored his comments?
What this study does is examine Picasso's debt to the masters that goes
beyond influence. I will show how he, throughout his career, created art from
art, how he looked for compositional structure with which to frame his subjects.
He followed suggestions of imagery in other works, building on what his
imagination saw. I try to paint what I have found, not what I sought, he said
(Picasso qtd. in Picasso ). In him the physical world around him and the world
of art in which he lived in his imagination, which included the art of the past,
merged into one.

Picasso has been the subject of much investigation, with each year more
books being added to the already vast number. My aim is not to repeat the
documented history about Picasso. I have been a practicing artist for over fiftyfive years. My purpose, as an artist, is to examine his working methods and the
result. I am interested in his imagination as he interacted with the art of others. I
don't see his content; I see form. Just as a bicycle seat can be a bull's head, many
things from other artists' work undergo a metamorphosis in his imagination.
I have been researching art sources for his work since 1965, when I wrote
my thesis at the University of Iowa on the sources in Picasso's early work 1900
-1906. I have done extensive research on Picasso's complete production focusing
on sources. The comparisons presented in this book are my observations based
on my understanding as an artist on how Picasso worked. I have relied on the
writings of Picasso himself along with what his friends and art historians have
written about this topic to augment my findings.
I believe that the comparisons presented in this book reveal and
demonstrate what a master Picasso was at grounding his art in art history.
Admittedly, some of the relationships I present in this study are subtle; if they
were obvious, they would be like his variations on Velazquez's Infanta Maria
Theresa. My focus is not on subject matter but his magical transformation of
forms and structures he gathers from the masters.
This book presents the work of Picasso together with the works of the
masters who served as models. He did not enter the twentieth century alone but
brought with him the art and culture of past centuries.

CHAPTER I
Early Attractions - 1901-1904
Xavier de Salas has given an account of Picassos experiences in Paris.
When Picasso first visited Paris in the fall of 1900, he brought with him the
preconceived notions he had developed from the descriptions given by the
young Spaniards -- Ramon Casas, Miguel Utrillo, Santiago Rusinol, and others -who had gone to Paris before him. They returned to Spain praising Paris to the
rebel group that met at "the Four Cats" bar in Barcelona. In Paris, they said, they
had found galleries to exhibit their work and inspiration from the artists and
writers who worked in the more liberal atmosphere of Paris.
Picasso had been attracted to the rebels in 1894 when he saw a procession
in which two El Greco paintings were carried through the streets accompanied
by Catalan poets and artists. Because El Greco was not held in high esteem in
Madrid at this time, the paintings had been purchased in Paris to be installed in
a museum in Barcelona. It was after this event that Picasso, who had established
some reputation as an artist by that time since several medals had been awarded
to him for his paintings, joined the group.
In Spain, Picasso had also developed an appreciation for Velazquez,
saying in a letter that he thought the work of Velazquez was first class and the
heads of El Greco were magnificent. This letter was dated 1897, showing an
early admiration for these artists. In the same letter, he vows to surpass the
Spanish painter, Nonell, who seems to have had some influence on Picasso's
early work. We also know that he studied Velazquez and Goya in the Prado
Museum in Madrid (de Salas 483).
EXAMPLES FROM 1901
In the spring of 1901, after he had returned to Spain, Picasso came back to
Paris. There he studied the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Gauguin,
Denis, Carriere, Cezanne, and others. In the Louvre he visited the collections of
the old masters and the rooms of Egyptian and ancient Mediterranean art which

Alfred H. Barr, Jr. believed were the sources for the archaisms which appear
in Picasso's work from 1900-1902 (Barr 19).
It is significant that Picasso was inspired by the masters of art whom he
deemed sympathetic to the conditions of the common man. Thus, artists like
Rembrandt, Velazquez, El Greco, Zurbaran, Courbet, Degas, Manet, Van Gogh,
Lautrec, and Steinlen are significant sources for him during this time.
Mourners 1901 (1)
In "Mourners (1), it has been noted that the little nude boy on the right
was taken from El Greco's "Holy Family with St. Anne and the Infant Baptist"
(1B) (de Salas 484). However, it has not been reported that the painting is a
mirror image of Zurbaran's Burial of St. Bonaventure (1A).
Burial of Casagemas / Evocation 1901 (2)
In the larger canvas of the "Burial of Casagemas, done in 1901, also called
"Evocation" (2), Picasso shows the burial of his friend who committed suicide
after being rejected by a woman he desired. The mourners surrounding the
body are smaller in scale than those of the earlier, smaller version. For this work
Picasso combined sources, a signal that this was an important project for him.
A major connection, I believe, exists between this painting and
Rembrandt's etching "The Death of the Virgin" (2A), as the Rembrandt provided
the compositional framework.
Other elements may derive from William Blake's "O How I Dreamt of
Things Impossible" (2B) as the figures ascend on the back of a horse.
In a manner recalling El Greco's "Burial of Conde de Orgaz" (2C), Picasso
substituted nudes, prostitutes, children, a mother and child along with a
dancing horse for the Count, friends, religious figures and Christ, Mary, St. John
the Baptist, St. Peter and other saints and angels in heaven., Phoebe Pool relates
Picassos figures to Redon's horses (Sources 180), all allegorical figures

mounting a bank of clouds above the heads of the mourners who are solidly
modeled and simplified.
A stone sepulcher in a forced perspective vision has been added to the
right of the picture. According to De Salas, these figures with folded arms and
mothers carrying infants are some of the first signs of a personal style in
Picasso's art and evoke a feeling of compassion (de Salas 484). Picasso played
down the spiritual theme of the sources and made this work more of a reflection
of his worldly situation.
The circular cloud patterns and the placement of the figures in Picasso's
painting suggest that Delacroix's "Peace Restoring the Bounty of the Earth" (2D)
made a significant contribution to the development of this work.
I believe this is one of the first examples of Picasso's combining sources.
L' entrevue / The Visit (study)" 1901 (3)
This study for "L'entrevue / The Visit) (3) is an early example of Picasso
using ""The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Charles Gleyre (5A).
Self Portrait 1901 (4)
When he left his home in Spain, Picasso was searching for himself and
becoming aware of the misery of his own life and of those around him. His
"Self-Portrait(4) focuses attention on the face. The background is painted flatly
as is the texture of the heavy coat. This portrait gives evidence of a Picasso who
has suffered the cold and hunger of the poor in Paris. He had burned some of
his own drawings to keep warm that winter, and his meals often consisted of
rotten sausage. Considering this, the portrait does not seem to have as strong an
element of self-pity as it does of acceptance.
The drawing and mood of this portrait may be traced back to a portrait of
a "Dominican" (15A) by El Greco in the emphasis on the forehead, ear, and
cheek-bone and in the treatment of the mouth and beard.

El Grecos Dominican will be an even stronger influence in later

paintings. In fact, he borrowed extensively from El Greco's work throughout his
career, with this early work a mere precursor. As Pierre Daix and Georges
Baudaille comment El Greco was studied and admired in the intellectual circles of
Barcelona. Santiago Rusinol had bought two paintings by El Greco in 1894, although
this was in Paris. Miguel Utrillo contributed a great deal towards making the Master of
Toledo known, even before the publication of his monograph on the artist in 1906.
Utrillo was an editor of the review Pe'l y Ploma, and he was responsible for the first
article of importance on Picasso published in Spain, on the pastels exhibited in the Sala
Pares ( Picasso 34). As Barr observes, Miguel Utrillo was also a connoisseur of
Catalan Medieval art, and he influenced Picasso simultaneously in the two
directions (Barr 274).
Picasso's debt to El Greco has been commented upon. For instance, There
is no doubt that Picasso found El Greco a very strong moral support (Cirici-Pellicer
qtd in Daix, Picasso: The Blue 22). The esteem in which Picasso held the works
of El Greco has also been substantiated by a conversation with Bernareggi
published by Diego F. Pro and reprinted by de Salas. Bernareggi said I
remember that in the Prado Museum, as I was copying El Greco with Picasso the people
and the fellow students were scandalized and called us 'modernistas' . . . . We sent the
copies to our professor in Barcelona (the father of Picasso). When it was a matter of
Velazquez, Goya and the Venetian painters, everything was well. But on the day that we
decided to make a copy of an El Greco, and we sent it to him, he replied severely, "You
are following the bad way!" That was in 1897. Then El Greco was a danger . . . . We
also made trips to El Escorial, to Aranquez, to Toledo. How many hours did we spend
studying and admiring "El Entierro del Conde Orgaz"/The Burial of Count Orgaz
(de Salas 484).
EXAMPLES FROM 1902
Study for Two Sisters 1902 (5) and Studies for La Vie 1903 (6, 7)

The "Study for Two Sisters," 1902 (5) and"Studies for La Vie" May 1903, (6)
and (7) demonstrate the definite reliance on Charles Gleyre's "The Return of the
Prodigal Son" (5A) at this stage in the development of the composition. The

prodigal son is transformed into one of the two sisters in the study by Picasso.
The arbor overhead appears in the top of Picasso's studies for La Vie. The
figure grouping is borrowed by Picasso.
Man in Blue 1902 (8)
"Man in Blue (8) is a twin of El Greco's St. Paul from "St. Peter and St.
Paul" (8A), displaying elements that are characteristic of the master's heads. The
turn of the nose angled to the right side of the face, the position of one eye a
little higher than the other, and a twist in the mustache and beard derive from
this El Greco, which was located in Barcelona where Picasso was working at the
time.
Head of a Woman 1902 (9)
El Greco's "Portrait of an Unknown Lady" (9A) is the model for Picasso's
"Head of a Woman" (9). The way the hair contrasts with the forehead, the
similarities of the contours, the placement of the features, and the light and
shadow development correspond to El Greco's style.

EXAMPLES FROM 1903

Studies for La Vie (6) and (7)
Studies for La Vie (6) and (7) were discussed in related examples from 1902.
La Vie 1903 (10)
"La Vie (10) is a good example of Picasso's combining various sources
into a unified work, as has been commented upon by George Heard Hamilton
On the wall behind the principal figures, two drawings are Picasso's tribute to the
masters who were then emerging as major influences in French and European painting:
to Gauguin, whose heavy contours are apparent in the two huddled nudes, and to Van
Gogh, whose more clamorous subjectivity is recalled by the crouching figure below, an
echo of his lithograph of Sorrow of 1882. In so large and carefully considered a work as

this, it is important to point to the elements drawn from other artists if we are to
understand Picasso's artistic personality, which time and again has been more refreshed
by the contemplation and analysis of works of art than of what is customarily described
as 'life' or 'nature' (Hamilton 144).
However, this is only the beginning, as there are various other ones as
discussed below. "Seated Nude" (10A) by Corot, in the collection of the Louvre,
relates to the crouching figures in La Vie.
This area may also owe something to Ingres' "The Dream of Ossian" (10G),
for Ossian at the bottom of Ingres' composition is suggestive of the figure on the
canvas in Picasso's painting. Other models such as the soldier and female in the
central portion of The Dream of Ossian (10G) could have posed for the two
figures as one in Picasso's "La Vie. The powerful shape of the soldier on the
right in the Ingres' painting visually contains the scene, as does the female on
the right of the Picasso.
"The Burial of Atala" by Anne Louis Girodet (10C) contains a crouching
figure which is a mirror reversal of Picasso's. Sir Anthony Blunt has suggested
that the crouching figure was derived from Van Gogh's "Sorrow (10B) (Blunt
qtd. in Pool The Picasso Exhibition 387).
Sir Edward Burne-Jones's near monochrome figures in "Perseus Receiving
His Arms" (10F) also appear related to the crouching figures as well as the
standing figures.
Incidentally, a "Study for La Vie (7) has a nude male on the right whose
pose is quite similar to that of Perseus. The central clothed figure hints at the
posture of the couple.
The left foot and leg of the male refer to El Greco, especially the Christ and
the large figure on the right in "The Resurrection" (10D) in the Prado. His hand
is in accord with the gestures of the hands in El Greco's "St. John the Baptist"
(10H) and the pointing child in the lower left of the "Burial of Count Orgaz"
(2C). These, along with the left hand of Christ in the "Agony in the Garden"

(40E), and Rubens' (10I) all served as sources in Picasso's painting.

I believe the head of the woman in La Vie (10) may have developed
from the figure on the right of a "Stele of a Father and Son" (10E). Note the small
crouched figure on the left.
Picasso even borrowed from himself, as the woman holding the infant is a
close relative of figures in the "Burial of Casagemas" / "Evocation" (2) by Picasso.
The curved arch behind the figures reinforces this.
Picasso demonstrated an ability to relate all these references in his work.
L Ascete 1903 (11)
One can see immediately the correlation that exists between "L Ascete (11)
and El Greco's portrait of "Antonio de Covarrubias" (11A), and to a lesser extent,
the portrait of "Diego Covarrubias" (11B). The modeling of the face and neck
which resembles the folds in the surplice of Antonio, the shadows on the side of
the head and cheekbones, the moustache which droops to one side (Picasso
reversed this), the form of the nose and eyelids, beard, and hair, and finally the
turn of the head on the neck demonstrate that the brothers Covarrubias were the
source.
The Old Guitarist 1903 (12)
In 1903, Picasso's slender figures approached mannerism, relating, as Barr
has written, to 16th century Mannerist painting. He mentions the "elongations,
the insistent pathos, the cramped postures or affected gestures" of the "Old Guitarist"
(12), and states that it possibly was influenced by the Spanish Mannerist
Morales and El Greco (Barr 29).
The identification with suffering and poverty in The Old Guitarist has
also been related to the bearded, cross-legged viol players of the twelfth century
Gloria portal of the Church of Santiago de Compostela (Barr 254).
Other candidates that may have inspired the "The Old Guitarist" are the
following:

George de la Tour's "Blind Beggar Playing the Hurdy-Gurdy" (12A) is

close to the mood of the "Old Guitarist," as it contains a blind man playing a
musical instrument with his mouth open, eyes closed, and head turned to one
side. Compare the grace of the form of the hand playing the instrument in each
work. Note also the crossing of the legs.
"The Last Communion of St. Jerome" (12B) by Domenichino may also have
suggested the crossed legs.
Memories of Rodin's "The Old Courtesan" (12C) may account for the
position of the head and legs and also the emaciation of the figure.
About 1890 Cezanne did a drawing based on Puget's "Flayed Man" (12D).
In 1903 Matisse did a sculptural copy of the same statue which was present in
the studios of many artists at that time. The dislocation of the head may derive
from these examples.
Finally, a head of a figure in the lower right of Delacroix's "Bark of Dante"
(12E) has much the same expression as Picasso's head. See also Entrance of
Crusaders into Constantinople (12F) by Delacroix.
EXAMPLES FROM 1904
Woman with a Crow 1904 (13)
In the spring of 1904, Picasso moved permanently to Paris. There, he
approached a flattening of form in his "Woman with a Crow" (13). Again, the
elongations recall El Greco, but, by this time, Picasso was distorting his figures
to such an extreme that the arms and fingers in a painful, almost abnormal,
position are Picasso's invention.
At this time he seems to reach a peak in expressive sentimentality.
Jennings reports that the first number of the magazine, "Joventut," contained a

biography of Beardsley with illustrations, and he says that "Beardsley seems

spiritually akin to the Picasso of such works as . . . "Girl with a Raven"/Woman with a
Crow (Jennings 188).
Woman with a Crow II 1904 (14)
It is possible that Picasso perceived a woman with a crow in Delacroix's
"Entrance of Crusaders into Constantinople" (12F). The central figure of that
work may have suggested the woman, and the dark shadow to the left has the
implied form of a crow which could have a bearing on Picasso's second version
of "Woman with a Crow" (14).
Portrait of the Sculptor Manolo 1904 (15)
Also in 1904, Picasso did what is called a "Portrait of the Sculptor
Manolo" (15). When this is compared with El Greco's "Portrait of a Dominican"
(15A), it is obvious that Picasso's work is a mirror image or reversal of the El
Greco. This is an example of Picasso's adapting the El Greco head as a model for
his own work. Perhaps the reversal was an attempt to conceal the source.
During these formative years, Picasso was involved in developing his art,
and this volume demonstrates the many and varied ways the young artist found
teachers and mentors in other artists.
Works cited:
Barr, Alfred H. Picasso: 50 Years of His Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1946. 272-273. Print.
Blunt, Sir Anthony, and Phoebe Pool. Picasso: The Formative Years: A Study of
His Sources. Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1962. 5. Print.
Daix, Pierre. Picasso. New York: Praeger, 1965. 34. Print.
Daix, Pierre, and Georges Boudaille. Picasso: The Blue and Rose Periods.
Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1966. 22. Print.

De Salas, Xavier. Some Notes on a Letter of Picasso. The Burlington Magazine

CII 692 (1955): 483-84. Print.
Galassi, Susan Grace. Picasso's Variations n the Masters: Confrontations with the
Past. New York: Abrams, 1996. 20. Print.
Hamilton, George Heard. Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1880-1940. New
York: Penguin, 144. Print.
Jennings, William. The Human Picasso Blue Period Drawings at O'Hara
Gallery. Apollo June 1960 188. Print.
Leymarie, Jean. Picasso: The Artist of the Century. New York: Viking, 1972. 273.
Print.
Lucas, John. "Picasso as a Copyist. Art News 54.7 1955 36-39. Print.
Parmelin, Helene. Picasso Says. Trans. Christine Trollope. London: Allen, 1969.
43. Print.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken,
1962. 16, 39. Print.
Picasso on Picasso. Time 16 June 1930. Print.
Pool, Phoebe. Sources and Background of Picasso's Art (1900-1906). The
Burlington Magazine CI 674 (1959). 178. Print.
Pool, Phoebe. The Picasso Exhibition: The Most Important Four Rooms. The
Burlington Magazine 102 690 1960 387. Print.
Stein, Leo. Appreciation, Painting and Prose. New York: Crown, 1974 174. Print.

CHAPTER II
Rose Metaphors - 1905
Picasso's mood started to change in 1905. His work was selling so well that
the dealer Vollard decided to represent him. Thus, he had the security of a
reputable dealer and financial success was a possibility. He acquired many new
friends and his studio became a meeting place for the revolutionaries in art. He
was living at this time with Fernande Olivier who began to appear as a subject
in his paintings during 1905. Fernande has been described as a beautiful girl
with a "healthy, positive attitude to life." Her influence in Picasso's life is
apparent in the paintings Picasso did of the circus performers and their families.
(Buckheim 32)
The Cirque Medrano in Paris has attracted many artists. Degas, ToulouseLautrec, Forain, Seurat and others were entertained there and Picasso
frequented the circus and delighted in meeting the performers. Apparently, he
felt close to them and their solitary way of life as entertainers. He seldom
pictured them in their professional acts but preferred to show them in their
family life and surroundings. By this time, Picasso was using more pink and
rose coloring in his paintings. He shifted his emphasis from the old beggars and
harlots to more youthful subjects in attitudes which expressed affection and
family devotion.
The numerous paintings of harlequins and the absence of many
self-portraits at this time raises the question as to the possibility that the
harlequin, as symbol, represents Picasso. Sam Hunter wrote "Picasso's stoic old
saltimbanques and emaciated young acrobats with reproachful eyes haunt us like a
dream; they are the stuff of vision rather than reality. They are, in fact, something in the
nature of a metaphor for Picasso's sense of his own artistic isolation" (Hunter 188).
The psychologist Carl Jung said that the harlequin may be Picasso in
disguise . Picasso had seen the "Mardi Gras" by Cezanne at Vollard's and this
painting may have sparked his interest in the harlequin image. Watteau also did
paintings of clowns which would have been familiar to Picasso. Moreover, at the

time, pierrots and harlequins were popular in literature, especially in works

dating from La Forgue to Apollinaire (Jung 352-354).
The crippled and deformed figures in the earlier works of Picasso contrast
with the agile grace of the bodies of the circus people. A preference for
representing single figures in their solitude will give way to related figure
compositions. Picasso began to establish a harmony, a peace, which seemed
possible due to an improvement in his economic and social situation and a more
amicable environment.
In 1905, Picasso painted over twenty-five versions of harlequins including
one that is definitely a self-portrait dressed in harlequin costume. Four of these
paintings are closely related to each other and to the previously mentioned
"Portrait of a Dominican" (15A) and the "Portrait of an Unknown Lady" (9A) by
El Greco.
"The Frugal Repast" 1904 (16)
Picasso searched "Napoleon Visiting the Pest House at Jaffa" (16A) by
Antoine Jean Gros and Titian's "Ecce Homo" (16B) to find faces for his "The
Frugal Repast" (16). Interested in portraying misery and suffering, Picasso
preferred to study misfortune at some distance now through the eyes of other
artists.
Hamilton relates this work to the production of Picasso's friend Nonell:
The simplified contours and modeling may owe something to his friend and compatriot
Isidro Nonell y Monturiol (1872-1911), whom Picasso knew in Barcelona and whose
studio in Paris he shared for a time. Nonell had treated the theme of the physically and
mentally handicapped in his drawings of the "Cretins" of Bohi in 1896, with similarly
encompassing outlines and broadly modelled forms. In his work around 1900 there is the
same atmosphere of physical and moral fatigue that we find in Picasso's. He also used
monochromatic schemes, usually a dark blue-green (Hamilton 142).
"Salome" 1905 (17)
"Salome," a drypoint (17) is another example of the impact of Ingres.

Compare this print with the "Dream of Ossian" (10G) by Ingres. Herod is seated
holding his face in the Ingres work. Next to him are the soldier and the female
whose close relationship is applied to Herod's wife in the Picasso print. The staff
of an obscure figure in front of the soldier and female provided the
compositional thrust for the left leg of Salome whose features were derived from
Ingres' profiles.
Daix reported that Picasso saw the Ingres retrospective exhibition in Paris
in 1905 and was "especially struck by the "Turkish Bath." (17A). Picasso studied
the elongations and anatomical displacements employed by Ingres to heighten
the sensual effect in his work while enhancing the compositional design (Daix
20). In the summer of 1905, Picasso took a trip to Holland and he saw a
difference in the anatomy of the people of that country which contributed to an
investigation of material weight and substance.
"Portrait of Alice Derain" 1905 (18)
The cross-hatching in "Portrait of Alice Derain" (18) comes from a
Rembrandt etching "Woman at the Bath with a Hat Beside Her" by Rembrandt
(18A). I have reversed the detail shown in (18B).
Study of a Woman for Family of Saltimbanques" 1905 (19)
The terra-cotta statuettes from Tanagra, which date around 300 B.C., are
representations of the people of that period. Most of these are of women
standing or sitting in quiet repose wearing a tunic and mantle and often a
broad-brimmed hat. Sometimes they are shown holding a child, a fan or some
fruit. I believe these statuettes were studied by Picasso and used as models for
his study of a woman (19) for the large "Family of Saltimbanques" of 1905 (21).
Helen Gardner suggested that the predominantly terra-cotta coloring of
Picasso's 1905 pictures indicated a study of Tanagra figurines. In an earlier
study for the "Saltimbanques" Picasso had a horse race in the background and
the woman is not present. In the final version, the race is painted out and the
woman appears isolated and "pasted" into the lower right corner. Indeed, the
mood of the whole picture is one of detached repose. The attitude expressed is
one of restraint (Gardner 702).

"Study for Family of Saltimbanques" 1905 (20)

Family of Saltimbanques" 1905 (21)
Poussin's "Finding of Moses" (20G) presents major sources for the figure
placement and the separation of the group from the woman. A sheep (?)
wrapped in cloth may have been a wolf in disguise or at least a dog in Picasso's
early version. The landscape, the racing horse and several heads in the "Study
for Family of Saltimbanques" (20) I believe came directly from Poussin's "The
Finding of Moses,"(20G). As Picasso's compositions became increasingly more
complex with the relating of many figures, he sought help from past masters of
group compositions. Picasso became a visual juggler manipulating numerous
masterpieces to balance his "Family of Saltimbanques" (21).
The right half of Watteau's "Embarkation for Cythera" (20A) helped in the
early stages of composing. The ground plane on which the people stand is like
Picasso's study (20). The entourage appears to be leaving the figure of the
woman who occupies the extreme right of both groups. This grouping is also
like the compact placement of men in El Greco's "Martyrdom of St. Maurice"
(20B). Note especially the position of the feet on the ground plane. The most
prominent source is Gustave Courbet's "Burial at Ornans" 1849, (20C, 20D, and
20E). Beginning in the upper left area, Picasso created a shorthand version of the
rock walls and buildings as seen in (20C). He raised his group of figures to fill in
the gap of the valley in (20C). The high horizon compressing the sky area is
paralleled by Picasso. See (20E). Another Courbet painting: "Bonjour M.
Courbet!" (20F) reinforces this relationship. The placement of the figures on a
road which curves to reveal the distant landscape, their erect postures, the angle
of the feet touching the plane of the road as they point to the other figures, the
dog, and the suggestion of a meeting relating to a journey-- all strongly imply
that Courbet played a significant part in the origin of "Family of Saltimbanques"
(21).
Picasso's final painting of this subject presents a more closely knit
relationship of the entourage, who form the shape of a capital letter "D," while
the isolated woman on the right corresponds to Watteau's woman and some of

Rembrandt's subjects. The German poet Rilke saw the huge letter "D" as the
great initial letter of "thereness." Courbet's "The Burial at Ornans" (20C)
conforms to this same configuration.
There are other examples of this shape which has played a role in figure
composition by the masters. In Rembrandt's "The Mocking of Christ" (21A), the
letter "D" is apparent. The Christ is the isolated, seated figure. The "D" is
present but is less obvious in Rembrandt's "Christ Preaching" (21B). The fat
clown of Picasso's creation has his counterpart in the center of Rembrandt's
composition. A kneeling man in the lower right is the isolated figure. Two other
Rembrandt drawings may have a bearing on this work. Consider "The
Departure of Benjamin for Egypt" (21C) and the "Dismissal of Hagar" (21E).
Goya's "Family of Charles V" (21D) line up in the same pose.
Roland Penrose claims that Picasso "was intrigued by Egyptian and Phoenician
art styles which in those days were generally considered barbaric." The rhythms
developed through the positions of the arms and the bas-relief modeling of
"Woman with a Fan" seem to support such a claim. This painting is more
objective and deliberate in the relationship of its parts and the color is more
simplified compared with the work Picasso produced before 1905 (Penrose 76).
Picasso was cognizant of the abandonment of Impressionism for more solid
form. His research of the masters helped him develop this trend in art. The
metaphors of his rose colored works of this period would be given classical form
in the production that followed.

Works cited.
Buckheim, Lothar Gunther Picasso, A Pictorial Biography 32 Print.Hunter, Sam
Modern French Painting New York, 1956 188. Print.
Jung, Carl G."Picasso (psychoanalyzed)" Neue Zurcher Zeitung (November 13,
1932). Translated by Christian Zervos. Cahiers d'Art 7 8-10, 1932 352-4. Print.
Hamilton, George Heard. Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1880-1940. New
York: Penguin, 142. Print.
Daix, Pierrre Cubists and Cubism New York: Skira-Rizzoli, 1982 20. Print.
Gardner, Helen Art Through the Ages Boston: Wadsworth 1959 702. Print.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken,
1962 76. Print.

CHAPTER III
Generalized Classicism - 1905-1906
During the latter part of 1905 and most of 1906, Picasso's work contained
figures at peace with themselves, each other and their environment. These new
figures had fuller forms than the emaciated persons pictured earlier. He was
working with balanced forms harmoniously arranged. Often Picasso's figures
displayed his interest in the intervals between separate figures as he placed
them against open space or simple blocks, rather than in any specific location.
Pool wrote that Picasso's "supremacy lies in the rhythm of his lines and the
general architecture of his pictures which set him in the French 19th century tradition
as a follower of Ingres." Picasso's economical color, swift line and generalized
vision are classical in their attitude. The classical tradition was, in one sense, a
revolt against the lack of form in Impressionism and the misty light in the work
of artists in northern Europe. Picasso's work became more impersonal and
detached. Form and clarity became important to him. Picasso saw the actual
works of the Greek Classical periods as well as the archaic Greek and Etruscan
marbles and bronzes in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Pool said that both the
styles and the idyllic, Arcadian view of antiquity as seen through the eyes of
Picasso's elders: Renoir, Gauguin, Puvis de Chavannes and Cezanne,
contributed to this change in Picasso's work. There were important exhibitions
of the work of these artists in 1904 and 1905 and Picasso would have had the
opportunity to study the work of these artists. He had a copy of Gauguin's book,
Noa- Noa, and "drew over" many of the pictures in that book. However, it was
from Cezanne that Picasso gained a greater sense of structure and organization
(Pool 122-123).
An exhibition of forty-three works by Puvis de Chavannes in 1904 at the
Salon d'Automne is mentioned by Pool and she described the "Blend of naivete
and sophistication, tranquil gestures of his figures, washes of cool colour, the geometric
organization of his pictures and the simplified drawing (which) seem to have appealed to
Picasso as they have done to Gauguin and Van Gogh (Pool 124).
Picasso must also have been aware of the trend of current writing and the

"Mediterranean heritage" which was a reaction against the works of the

Northern artists such as Nietzsche and Wagner. At this time, Charles Maurras,
an important critic, advanced the idea that "Beauty is harmony" and a work of art
"should be submitted to superior reason" with the "parts subordinated to the whole"
(qtd. in Pool 127).
EXAMPLES FROM 1905
"Boy Leading a Horse" 1905 (22)
The production of Picasso during this period manifested an interest in this
new classicism. One example of the influence of Greek Classical art is found in
Picasso's "Boy Leading a Horse" (22). The figure of the boy is detached, serene
and resembles the Greek Kouroi of the sixth century B.C., especially in the
placement of one foot behind the other and the slim waist and chest. A painting
of a boy "Bather" (22B)by Cezanne has the same attitude with arms bent and a
hand resting on the hip. The feet in Picasso's version are seen from a lower
viewpoint and are more foreshortened than the feet in his earlier figures which
were like the feet of El Greco's figures pictured as though we were looking
down at the top of the feet. Rembrandt's "Study of a Male Nude" (22A) may
have contributed to this work.
A taste for El Greco and the gestures of his figures which are a form of
mime in the manner of Greek Classical Miming could have prepared Picasso's
vision for an attraction to Greek art. El Greco also influenced Picasso's concept
of space. The Picasso paintings have the same shallow space as the space in El
Greco's "St. Martin and the Beggar," but the flattened form of the distant
landscape refers to the work of Puvis de Chavannes with a flatness not unlike
stage scenery.
EXAMPLES FROM 1906
"La Coiffure" 1906 (23)
In 1967, the artist William Gambini showed me "La Coiffure" (23) by
Picasso and told me he thought it was based on "A Young Woman at Her
Toilette" (23A) by Rembrandt. The child in (23) fits nicely in the dark shadow

area in the Rembrandt.

"Studies for La Toilette 1906 (24) (25) and (26)
"La Toilette" 1906 (27)
"The Harem" 1906 (28)
One of the strongest parallels between Classical Greek art and the art of
Picasso is "La Toilette" (27) and the studies for this work (24), (25), and (26). Pool
wrote of the influence of the androgynous flying gods in the Louvre and the
figures on Greek vases. The stance of the woman holding the mirror in "La
Toilette" is like a maiden on the right of the frieze of the Parthenon in the
Louvre. The emphasis that Picasso places on the curls of hair is surely related to
the curls carved in Greek Classical sculpture. Picasso painted with a terra-cotta
or red color in these paintings, connecting his work with the Hellenistic and
Roman terra-cottas and also Greek vases of the fifth century. This figure may be
a study after the woman on the right of Botticelli's "A Lady and Four Allegorical
Figures" (10B). The female on the left is associated with Titian's "Venus Rising
from the Sea" (28B), however a more direct relationship exists between Picasso's
work and Bouguereau's "The Birth of Venus" (28A) which was also a model for
Picasso's "Young Female Nude and Nude Child, with a Goat," "Young Girl
Arranging Her Hair," and for the composition of Picasso's "The Harem" (28). In
addition to this, the "Harem" contains elements from Ingres's "The Turkish Bath"
(17A), Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" (28C), and Paul Gauguin's "Where Do
We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?"(28D).
"The Birth of Venus" by Bouguereau (28A) suggested the pose and the
centaur's nose and beard on the left. The light negative space looks like the
horns of the goat in Picasso's painting. On the opposite side a shell becomes a
jug in Picasso's work. Note the female head turning around in the Bouguereau
and the placement of the hands for comparison.
"Flower Girl" (Study for the Peasants) 1906 (29)
"Flower Girl" (Study for the Peasants) (29) was based on several works. One

was Botticelli's "Study for the Allegorical Figure, Abundance" (29A). Another
was Pierre Auguste Cot's "Paul and Virginia" (29B). A third possibility is a
central figure in Ingres' "The Golden Age" (29C).
Study for the "Composition: the Peasants" 1906 (30)
A study for the "Composition: the Peasants" is shown in (30). This work
shows a relationship between the garlands floating over the head of the man
and the angels in the "Birth of Venus" by Bouguereau (28A).
"Composition" 1906 (31)
The painting of peasants and oxen called the "Composition" (31) was
probably painted after Picasso returned to Paris after a trip to Gosol. On this
journey, he went through Barcelona where his friend Miguel Utrillo had just
published the first Spanish monograph on El Greco. This book contained a
reproduction of El Greco's "St. Joseph and the Infant Jesus" (31A) which Barr
compared with Picasso's "Composition." Barr pointed out that in the El Greco
the flowers are borne by angels and there are no cattle. The relationship between
El Greco and Picasso is perhaps strongly suggested in a composition of these
paintings than the other El Greco's that Picasso worked from and yet Picasso
was noncommittal when asked about the influence of El Greco in his
"Composition." This is one of the earliest paintings in which Picasso implies
motion. The small head and large arms of the man and the thin-waisted,
floating figure of the girl are akin to the manneristic art of El Greco. Two dark
shapes, one in the area of St. Joseph's right hand, the other just above the
horizon, suggested to Picasso's imagination the heads of cattle. One head is
easier to perceive. The jaw is near Joseph's hand. The nostril and mouth are
situated near the top of the staff. A dark spot for an eye and surrounding dark
area are above Joseph's wrist and on a line horizontally with the beard of
Joseph. Curves in the lower left of the landscape are simplified by Picasso. The
angels and flowers in the sky became a bouquet in the "Composition." The
highlight on the right elbow of the man occurred as a light area of cloud in the
El Greco. The shape of his hand was determined by the light area of cloud in the
midst of the angels. His hand and the contour of his face come from a shape
formed by the angel's arm. Picasso reversed the light-dark relationship of the

clouds to create an arbitrary value contrast and a line formed by their coming
together points to the head of the girl. The relationship of the figures is obvious
and the unusual placement of the feet on the edge of the format conclusively ties
these two works together. (Barr 53)
In addition, the previously mentioned (29C), (29A), (29B), and (28A) were
combined by Picasso to create his painting. Figure (32) is a diagram from Picasso's
"Composition" (31). The figure (32A) is a diagram from Bouguereau's "The Birth of
Venus" (28A). Twenty-five points of comparison are identified.
"Two Women" 1906, (33)
Picasso's intimacy with Chasseriau's "Two Sisters" (33B) reveals itself in "Two
Women" (33). Another source coupled with this one is Jan Gossaert's "Neptune and
Amphitrite" (33A). The left hand, torso and the placement of the feet of Amphitrite were
repeated by Picasso.
"Two Nudes" 1906 (34)
The manner in which Courbet created shapes on his figures with patterns of
light and shadow was applied by Picasso to his "Two Nudes" (34). See (34A)
which is a detail of Courbet's "The Painter's Studio". Picasso's painting appears
to combine the Iberian style and his interest in sculptural modelling. This work
was produced during a time when Picasso was sculpting. He did not sculpt
extensively again until over twenty years had passed. Significantly, the woman
on the left holding back the drapery is a forerunner of the woman on the left of
Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" 1906, (40). The size and pose of the figure
on the right of Ruben's "The Three Graces" (34B) must also be compared to
Picasso's bulky female. A suggestion of the poise of Ingres' standing figure on
the right of the "Turkish Bath" (17A) was transferred to Picasso's figures in this
work.
Picasso's study of classical form shows that his style was evolving from the
sentimental subject-centered work of the earlier periods and that he was
preparing for a major synthesis of form.

Works cited.
Pool, Phoebe "Picasso's Neo-Classicism First Period 1905-1906," Apollo, VLXXXI 36 February 1965 122. Print.
Pool, Phoebe "Picasso's Neo-Classicism First Period 1905-1906," Apollo, VLXXXI 36 February 1965 123. Print.
Pool, Phoebe "Picasso's Neo-Classicism First Period 1905-1906," Apollo, VLXXXI 36 February 1965 123-124. Print.
Pool, Phoebe "Picasso's Neo-Classicism First Period 1905-1906," Apollo, VLXXXI 36 February 1965 124. Print.
Pool, Phoebe "Picasso's Neo-Classicism First Period 1905-1906," Apollo, VLXXXI 36 February 1965 127. Print.

CHAPTER IV
New Forms, Primitive Faces and Cubism - 1906-1914
EXAMPLES FROM 1906
"Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" 1906 (40)
The Autumn Salon of 1905 showed ten of Cezanne's paintings, with ten
being shown the year of his death, 1906; fifty-six works were exhibited in a
memorial in 1907. Picasso had to make his peace with the attention being paid
to the art of Cezanne by paying him homage and, in his own way, challenging
Cezanne.
His way of doing this was to include figures placed in a tight grouping
following Cezanne's lead. The nude in the center of Picasso's painting of "Les
Demoielles d'Avignon" (40) is quite similar to a nude with raised arm and the
drapery displayed in the "Temptation of St. Anthony" (40E) by Cezanne. The
idea of an interior scene bordered by curtains could have been acquired from a
study of Cezanne's "A Modern Olympia." (39A). The nudes in Cezanne's
paintings and the nude in "La Source" (40D) by Ingres strike a pose with arm
raised to expose the armpit; a gesture which was considered sexually
provocative to many Europeans at the time.
The "cube, cone and cylinder" theory promoted by Cezanne especially
affected the form of Picasso's figures. This theory was first published in 1907,
although there were important Cezanne exhibitions in Paris during 1905 and
1906, as well as 1907, so Picasso had ample opportunity to study Cezanne's
work at these exhibitions.
I believe an explanation may be found by considering that Picasso, in
looking at Cezanne's work, realized that Cezanne was working from Ingres's
"The Golden Age" of 1862 (29C) and Titian's "Diana and Actaeon" of 1559 (40A).
The Rubenesque statue of the woman must also have been obvious to him. He
certainly had access to El Greco's art since Picasso had copies of El Greco's
paintings and was enthusiastic about Cezanne's search for alternatives to the

space of Renaissance perspective in El Greco's manneristic style.

Picasso recalled that he had Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" (28C) and
Delacroix's "Women of Algiers" (130A) in mind when he started work on "Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon." This may be true, however, I propose that Picasso
initially made studies from Rubens and Zurbaran and shortly thereafter added
Titian and El Greco as major sources. I will demonstrate how their influences
were much more direct than that of Manet and Delacroix when he began the
most ambitious project of his early career.
An investigation involving the early studies for "Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon" will support this thesis. A number of the preparatory studies were
never published until just before Picasso's death. Some have suggested that
Picasso's secrecy was in order to conceal his sources. These sketches and studies
provide valuable clues about the progression of the work as Picasso spends
months defining each character and how they will co-exist in his new space.
Over forty compositional studies for "Les Demoielles d'Avignon" have been
identified. These reveal the challenge he faced as he attempted to combine these
numerous sources.
No satisfactory explanation has been offered for the abrupt change which
occurred from the sketches for the "Demoiselles", displaying the Cezanne
influence, to the more severe color and the angular composition in the painting.
Herbert Read commented on this shift from Cezanne as follows: "Cezanne's
pyramidal structure is replaced by vertical parallels" and he posed the question
about the influence of Cezanne, "In the completed painting...certain innovations
appear for which there is no parallel in Cezanne's "Baigneuses,"notable the
geometricization of the sharply outlined figures, and the folds of draperies against which
the "Demoiselles" disport themselves" (Read 60) .
"Studies for the Demoiselles" 1906 (35) (36) (37) (38) (39)
An investigation involving the early studies for "Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon" (40) may offer an explanation. Picasso's "Study for the
Demoiselles"(35) may have been sketched from the figures in Poussin's
"Parnassus" (35A) which Picasso could have studied at the Prado Museum. A

later study in 1906, (36) was based on (35A) and also on Poussin's "Inspiration of
Anacreon" (42B). This work contributed the second figure from the left with her
twisted torso and her head framed by a tree limb. Another tree line continues
next to the two figures suggested by putti in Paul Veronese's "The Finding of
Moses" (36A). The upraised arms and the body of the central figure near the top
of the study came from the putto in the middle of (36A) and the segments of sky
seen between the trees and the side of a cliff place the third vertical line in
Picasso's study. The putto on the right floats in front of the trees which defined
the last vertical division for Picasso. Anacreon's pose was transferred directly to
the central figure of (36). The wreath on his head was translated into fruit by
Picasso. Additional studies for (40) are (37) and (38). A survey of these works
will show that Picasso was combining the earlier sources of Zurbaran's "Funeral
of St. Bonaventure" (1A) and Ingres' "Turkish Bath" (17A). Both paintings are
compositions of horizontally placed figures interacting with overlapping larger
figures in the foreground. The large squatting nude in the right corner
compares to the nude with arms raised over her head like the figures in (17A).
The objects in the foreground of (17A) are repeated by Picasso as pitchers and
bowls of fruit. In (38) Picasso relied on Zurbaran for several figures. Beginning
on the left, the person with heavy dark robes came from Burial of St.
Bonaventure (1A) as did the bald head in the center. St. Bonaventure's masklike face suggested the mask of the squatting figure. The light miter in the upper
left of (1A) reappears as folds in the drapery of (38).
For his study (39), Picasso may have used Rembrandt's Acteon from "Diana
and Acteon" (39B). Witness his figure entering from the upper right. Lines on
what appears to be trees in the Rembrandt coincide with the two central figures
with raised arms in Picasso's study. Several other lines have parallels in the two
works. The figure on the left and the seated figure in Picasso's study could have
been reinforced by the memory of Titian's "Diana and her Nymphs Surprised by
Actaeon" (40A).
Picasso tried to integrate all these various influences. Some feel that he
never really resolved the work leaving the many different directions for us to
witness in its unresolved state.

A study of El Greco's "Agony in the Garden" (40E) (sometimes referred to as

the "Mount of Olives," which is in the National Gallery in London, will reveal
that Picasso used this painting in developing the composition. He placed his
figures on a framework suggested by the El Greco painting. Rutter tells us that
"El Greco was rediscovered by Cezanne" and that Cezanne was "attracted by the
three-dimensional design of El Greco. Cezanne, himself an extremist in some respects,
was insidiously drawn towards the extreme mannerism in the works of El Greco's last
period. On these late works, rather than on the masterpieces of Greco's middle period,
Cezanne based much of his own practice." Thus Picasso, in studying Cezanne, could
quite naturally have recalled El Greco whom we know Picasso had never really
abandoned as a master. (Rutter 2)
Leo Steinberg quoted Picasso as saying that El Greco's pictures were already
cubist in structure (Picasso qtd. in Steinberg 131).
Barr wrote "As the painting the "Demoiselles" developed it is also possible that
memories of El Greco's compact figure composition and the angular highlights of his
draperies, rocks and clouds may have confirmed the suggestions drawn from Cezanne."
Barr reproduced the lower half of El Greco's "Assumption of the Virgin" to
illustrate his statement (Barr 54 and 256).
Gomez de la Serna, a Spanish writer and friend to Picasso at this time,
recalled that Picasso's walls at the "Bateau Lavoir", where Picasso lived and
worked, were decorated with reproductions of El Greco's work (de la Serna 6-7).
By comparing Picasso's "Demoiselles" with the "Agony in the Garden" by
El Greco we can discover at least forty-five segments which parallel. These
segments have been numbered in order to make it easier to locate them in the
diagrams (40F) and (40G) and to facilitate the commentary which follows:
1. The unusual position of the hand in (40F) spread like feathers in the
pinion of the angel of (40G).
2. In this area, Picasso has adapted the cloud forms of (40G) but retained the
highlights on the clouds.

3. Here the dark hair curving down the head (40F) is like the dark area of
the wing in (40G).
4. This streak of light is in both paintings in the exact same place and is
practically the same size and angle compared to other shapes in the area.
5. The ear in (40F) and a fold just above the waist in the garment of the
angel in (40G) are identical. Note also the eye in (40F) and its shape which is
formed like the feather tips in (40G).
6. Another fold in the angel's robe creates an area between the breast and
arm of the figure in (40F).
7. Light streaks above the elbow in (40F) are painted in the same manner as
El Greco painted above the head of the angel.
8. The placement of the vertical line is common to both works.
9. The elbow and folds in the robe must have suggested a head to Picasso.
Notice how the right hand in the El Greco becomes the left ear close to the head
in the Picasso.
10. The angle of this line in (40G) is placed in a more vertical position by
Picasso.
11. A similar thing occurs with these lines. Note how the position of areas
#6 and #11 form or suggest the breast and angular front of Picasso's figure.
12. Here Picasso flattens the back and foot of the angel and makes this form
an arm and hand accounting for the strange position of the arm.
13. An angle in the drapery in the El Greco is used by Picasso to form the
bend in the knee of his figure and a corresponding angle forms the pointed knee
at #14.
14. See above.

15. The line of the tree in (40G) becomes an abstract line in (40F).
16. In (40G), limbs on the ground set limits for the long foot and the drapery
of Picasso's figure.
17. Three folds in El Greco's drapery are matched by Picasso's.
18. Folds in the robes of the sleeping apostles suggested the folds and hand
in (40F). The figure of the apostle directly under the chalice is a prototype of the
second figure from the left in (40F).
19. Leaves or flowers in (40G) are replaced by fruit in (40F).
20. The folds pointing in opposite directions were taken from El Greco and
used by Picasso under the leg of the seated figure in (40F).
21. The mound of earth in (40G) makes a seat for the figure in the lower
right of (40F).
22. Note the angle and position of these lines.
23. The elliptical shape of this area in (40G) is an agent in creating the
twisted position of Picasso's figure.
24. The angle of three streaks of light in (40G) is hinted at in (40F).
25. El Greco's rocks and clouds shape the folded arms of Picasso's figures.
26. These cloud shapes by Picasso are like El Greco's representation.
27. The diagonal movement is in both paintings.
28. The clouds and lines in the El Greco suggested a nose and the position
of the face in the Picasso

29. El Greco's clouds and rocks in this segment crested the cubed shape of
the breasts in Picasso's work preparing the way for Cubism.
30. El Greco's torn clouds and moon are in the upper right of (40F) and are
also implied by segment #34. The scene may have changed to an out of doors
landscape at this point contrary to the usual interpretation of this being an
interior scene.
31. The rock in the El Greco is replaced by angular patterns in Picasso's
painting.
32. The rough form of a tree painted by El Greco and its surrounding area
correspond to the head by Picasso.
33. El Greco's triangular shape was adapted by Picasso as an open space
between the arm and side of the figure.
34. The tree limb in (40G) may have contributed to the angular patterns in
(40F).
35. Shading on the rock in (40G) coincides with the left breast of Picasso's
central figure.
36. The forked shadow on the robe of Christ was repeated by Picasso as an
abstract shape.
37. This area in the Picasso can be found in the El Greco in relation to the
objects surrounding it. It is more of an abstraction than some of the other
comparisons.
38. Christ's knee functions as a leg in the Picasso version.
39. Drapery folds of (40G) can be found in a simplified form in (40F).40. A
fold in Christ's robe at the left elbow is used as a curved line on the left shoulder
of the seated figure in (40F).

41. The hand of Christ becomes the left elbow in (40F).

42. Compare the curved lines in both paintings. See the line diagrams (40H)
and (40I).
43. A suggestion of Picasso's figure in this area is again developed from El
Greco. Note the contour down the neck and left arm of the Christ and how this
forms the right breast and torso in Picasso's work.
44. The head of this figure is created from shapes around the head of Christ.
45. This item is not represented by a number on the diagrams. It is the
duplication of the color hues.
This comparison demonstrates that the "Agony in the Garden"
determined, to a great extent, the final composition and suggested some of the
more radical innovations of form employed by Picasso in his "Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon."
The square format of (40) was determined by Zurbaran's "Burial of St.
Bonaventure" (1A). A line moving from the lower left to the mask of the seated
figure in (40) was taken from the slope of St. Bonaventure in (1A). The miters
and crown on the left of (1A) relate to the raised arms of Picasso's central
figures. The direct eye contact with the viewer (almost an hypnotic stare) that
Picasso's figures display may have an origin in the background figures in (1A).
This device continues in several Picasso works after this painting.
SETTING THE STAGE
The figures in Poussin's "Parnassus," 1630s, (35A) at the Prado Museum
and the various poses of clothed and nude figures with some of the persons
holding books and a skull-like mask should not be overlooked as possible
catalysts for the initial theme which involved a medical student holding a book
and sometimes carrying a skull. One figure prominently displays a mask. The

figure that Picasso called "a medical student," according to Mary Martha Gedo,
played the role of Father Time, lifting the curtain to unveil the truth "the latter
represented by Picasso, as in earlier versions of the theme, as an undraped
female with two clothed males. He rejected the implausible scenario of nudes
outdoors by Manet, Cezanne, Matisse and Derain, popular at the time, and
brought the nude figures inside a brothel where he could justify their exposure
with the two gentlemen. First attempts are all rather static horizontal lineups as
one might experience in a presentation of prostitutes to clients in a brothel.
(Gedo 78)
It is important to note here that the artists who were of interest to Picasso
-- Manet, Delacroix, Zurbaran, El Greco, and Titian -- had all painted nearly
square large format paintings. Picasso was searching for a way to make the
composition more dramatic, so he shifted the horizontal emphasis to a slightly
vertical composition by combining the dynamics of all these sources into one.
The almost square plan denied a dominant vertical or a dominant horizontal
movement taking over the painting. The eight foot scale of the painting draws
the viewer into its space as the viewer becomes a participant in the arena of the
painting. This scale of the masters of past centuries would become a key factor
in spatial exploration of the Abstract Expressionists' art of mid-twentieth
century.
STUDIES AFTER TITIAN
Building on the studies based on Zurbaran, Picasso turned to Titian's
"Diana and Actaeon" 1559, (40A) In this mythological story, Actaeon discovers
the goddess Diana and her maids bathing nude in the woods. For his
punishment, Diana turns Actaeon into a stag and dogs eat him. Does Diana
represent Gertrude Stein sitting in judgment of Picasso's fate? Will this sitting
figure eventually posed with an arm resting on her knee an with legs spread in a
pose similar to the way Gertrude Stein was portrayed in Picasso's portrait of her,
as well as in photographs and sculpture, evolve into a symbol of Diana-AthenaOwl-Gertrude? This will be presented in more depth later.
In these early studies, Picasso moved the woodland scene inside and
included seven figures -- five female and two males. Originally, the males may

have been stand-ins for Picasso and Max Jacob. Picasso said they were a medical
student and a sailor. (Picasso qtd. in Kahnweiler 24). The two men were
characterized by Leo Steinberg as symbols of detachment versus engagement,
intellectuality versus sensuality. For William Rubin, the medical student
symbolized the artist's mind and intelligence while the sailor in the midst of
food, drink, and prostitution denoted Picasso's instinctive sensuous side. The
number of women coincided with the number of women in Picasso's home
during his youth: mother, grandmother, two aunts and a maid. (Gedo 78).
For several of the versions of Picasso's "Study of Seven Persons, Five
Females, A Medical Student and a Sailor" as shown in (44), he found the left
hand holding back the drapery and the hint of the arm holding the books for his
medical student as well a the high cuff on the left leg which looks Actaeon's
boot. Picasso saw the next nude in the white clouds in the sky near to the left
hand of Actaeon. The seated figure with leg bent is next in the line as the bottom
of the red drapery formed the back of her chair. The shy pose of the fourth
figure from the left in "Diana and Actaeon" suggested the bashful sailor in
Picasso's study. She also gave lines to the top of the table. The forced perspective
of the table was completed by the right foot and leg of Diana and the right side
of the table was imagined in the back of the woman drying her foot. This tilted
table top was a predictor of the multiple perspective views which will play a
major part in Cubism. Above her back is the is the stone pier or support which
must have intrigued Picasso, for many of his studies of this blocked form
demonstrate how Picasso changed it into a nude with raised arms. Numerous
studies in Picasso's "Sketchbook # 42 of 1907 show how he explored the building
blocks and how they could be applied to the figure. This shows Picasso relating
these forms to Cubist theory. A patch of blue sky parting the dark areas of
"Diana and Actaeon" does the same in the sketch in the area showing the
opening of the drape. Between the trees in the background on the right of
"Diana and Actaeon" Picasso saw a head where they meet, and this imaginary
observation placed the entering figure on the right. Diana's seated pose was
merged with that of her maidservant. The curved lines for her left buttock were
found in the negative space above the dog, and the right buttock follows the
curves in the striated lines of the red and white dress. Notice also the few lines
Picasso used to draw the neck of Diana as it meets the head of the maidservant.
This line was turned into the pony tail in the study. A curved line represents the

piece of turf at the bottom of "Diana and Actaeon." Picasso finished the study
with a curving flourish and crossed diagonals as he surveyed the design
possibilities of this arrangement. Sailors at sea having sex with other males was
a common assumption. Picasso may have chosen this symbol for Jacob,k who
told stories of being a sailor in his youth. In discussing the role of the medical
student and the sailor in these studies, Gedo pointed out that "unlike
Apollinaire and Picasso,, Jacob avoided women when he reached manhood,
seeking sexual satisfaction in perverted activities involving children. (Gedo 80).
The fact that he was a renowned female impersonator suggests, however, his
underlying identification with his all-powerful mother. In this light, it seems
interesting that Picasso replaced his self-portrait as a medical student with that
of Jacob. (Z, II, pt.1,20). Perhaps the latter represented not only Picasso's
misogyny carried to its extreme degree, but the artist's feminine aspects, also
implicit in that passive sailor image. Ultimately, Picasso merged this Jacob-self
figure with that of the nearest demoiselle, whom he moved to the left margin of
the painting, where only her gesture, as she continues the revealing action
initiated by the artist himself, provides a clue to her origins. This constitutes the
second instance in Picasso's oeuvre in which he depicts himself in female guise.
Earlier he had presented himself as the female acrobat being protected by the
macho strongman" (Gedo 80).
Gedo says that only the support of Jacob and Apollinaire enabled Picasso
to "confront the sources of his anger toward women and to recognize, however
dimly, that his resulting ambivalence would color his relationships with them
throughout his life (Rubin 24).
Several of the preparatory studies show the cast of "Diana and Actaeon" as
Picasso reduced the number in his composition from seven to six and finally
ended with five as he excluded the medical student and the sailor. Thereby,
Picasso removed himself from the cast.
The "Composition Study" June 1907 (39) still has traces of Titian. The
figure on the lefty and the seated figure in Picasso's study were reinforced by
figures in Titian's "Diana and Actaeon." (43A) The warm colors on the right
occur in both. Of interest is the right ankle of Actaeon, which Picasso shows
tethered by the nude pulling a diagonal rope, an element that has never been

addressed before to my knowledge. Is the man her slave? Picasso found the
mask-like head in the shapes of the trees in "Diana and Actaeon." This color also
appears in a couple of strokes defining the curves of Diana's buttocks and the
shape of the watermelon slice which Picasso saw next to her foot. The second
nude from the left in the watercolor fits the curve of the arch in "Diana and
Actaeon." Of special note is the little forked touch of blue sky which may be
found between the pier and the tree in "Diana and Actaeon" and the green
mountains which were accented in the watercolor and reserved for the forked
blue and white shape in "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon."
In late 1907 Picasso continued to work from "Diana and Actaeon" with his
"Five Women" series, obviously referring to the figures and "bathtub" as well as
the arches and trees in "Diana and Actaeon." For example see "Five Women"
1907 (46). The dark reflections in the water helped shape the low boat for
Picasso. Manet's "Dead Christ and the Angels" 1864 (9B) was added as a source
for these works.
STUDIES AFTER CHASSERIAU
Picasso had previously used Theodore Chasseriau's "Tepidarium" 1850-56,
(11A) for his "Acrobat on a Ball" in 1905. Both the March 1907, "Study of Seven
Persons, Five Females, a Medical Student and a Sailor" (vertical format) (47) and
the "Composition Study of Seven Figures for Les Demoiselles d"Avignon" (49)
reveal a brief diversion to the "Tepidarium (11A).
In (47), Picasso compresses the figures in "Tepidarium" to make a more
verrtical arrangement and includes the window in the top and the dancing
figure in the middle. Picasso draws lines to suggest the tunnel-shaped room.
Note the figure arrangements and the upturned head of the seated figure, the
figure entering from the left and a corresponding figure on the right side plus
the still life in the foreground. Picasso attempted to combine the Chasseriau
with the studies from Titian by referencing the hound of Actaeon and a pitcher
or pot of flowers which was imagined from a dark shape of the sculptured "
bathtub" in "Diana and Actaeon." Actaeon's hound is shown climbing the leg of
the figure on the left. A triangle in the foreground of "Tepidarium" was repeated
numerous times by Picasso in these sketches. Picasso marked this study with a

strong horizontal line, squared up the format and finished with a sweeping
curved line which may be a record of his checking how the figures related
spatially or may suggest that he rejected this plan for the seven figures at this
point by striking this out with a final flourish of his pencil. (Fig.15) which also
references the Chasseriau, shows the seated figures and the dancing girl in the
center. Picasso again crosses out this study with a swirl of lines.
STUDIES AFTER EL GRECO
El Greco's "Holy Trinity," 1577 (42A) contributed in a major way to the
change from an horizontal format to the nearly vertical square composition.
Picasso noted the pointed forms of the hat on the head of God the Father and
the wings of the Holy Ghost, which have similar shapes when compared with
the upraised arms in a central nude in his study done as early as March 1907,
"Study of Seven Persons, Five Females, A Medical Student and a Sailor" in
Sketchbook #3 (48). He lined the movement from the upper left to the bottom
feet of Christ. The angel in blue and the dove relate to the upraised arms of
Picasso's central nude. The head of Christ suggested the central hooded figure
of the sailor, and the line under Christ's right shoulder and around the right
pectoral changed angle at the right hip. Picasso drew a line along the beard of
God the Father and took it to the top, returning along a light ray. Another line
flowed along the left side of Christ and intersected the diagonal of Christ's left
leg. Picasso continued this line to parallel the first diagonal line described above.
The joining of the angel's right leg and Christ's right leg completed a triangle
Picasso used at the base of his composition pointing into the design. The angel
on the top right of "Holy Trinity" holding back the garment of God the Father
was sketched in by Picasso, and he turned it into a breast formed from the wing
of the angel in red. Picasso's squatting figure relates to the white oval shape of
God the Father's left arm, and the rest of the lines for the body may be found in
the lines and folds of the white robe. The shift from the rounded buttocks of
"Composition Study with Seven Figures for Demoiselles d'Avignon" March
1907, (44), to the pointed triangleal Student and a Sailor" March 1907, (48), came
from this same robe. The wedge-shaped head on the left developed from the
angel in mauve and green. A triangle between the mauve bottom and the left
calf of this angel was repeated in the study. The wing of this angel formed the
pointed arm in the study. The leg of Picasso's third figure from the left and the

horizontal line cutting across this leg are a dark green shape next to the right
thigh of Christ. Parallel line at the top left of the study flipped the light rays seen
in the El Greco. Folds in the gown of the angel in blue between her arm and the
face of the angel in mauve and green supplied the tilt of the breasts in the top
left figure in the study.
The nearly spring studies prove that El Greco's influence was there from
the start and not a latecomer as has ben reported in most research of the
painting. See how the hand holding back the drapery changes to an awkward
position jutting out of the head on the left figure. This occurs in the clasped
hands of the angel on the top left of El Greco's "Holy Trinity," (42A) as they seem
to grow out of the back of the head of the angel in mauve and green. Picasso,
still working with seven figures, moved the nude with raised arms to the center
which echoed the Holy Spirit in the El Greco. Since Picasso saw a similarity in
the white robes of God the Father compared to his squatting nude on the right,
he moved the head forward and added the sharp pointed buttocks which he
saw in the folds. This was a shift from the rounded forms of Titian's figure
which formerly occupied this area.
Picasso included six figures in his "Study for Les Demoiselles" (50) also
called interestingly "Baigneuses dans la Foret (a reference to "Diana and
Actaeon?) The crossed leg of the seated figure of earlier studies in this series has
been replaced with the nude with the slope to the legs, aview that appears to be
from an elevated position. The cloth on the right leg of Diana and the loin cloth
hanging from the left hip of Christ were combined to form a cylindrical vase -or is it a candle? The diagonal line was suggested by the cloth covering part of
Diana's leg. A sliver of blue sky in "Diana and Actaeon" shaped the space for the
nude with raised arms in Picasso's study.
A limited sketch "Study of Seven Persons, Five Females, a Medical Student
and a Sailor (51), shows Picasso's effort to combine the El Greco and Titian
influences. Picasso included the angel for the figure on the left but still looked to
Titian for the grouping on the right. The maidservant in "Diana and Actaeon"
supplied the curves for Picasso's figure in the lower right. Four lines represent
the trees / drapery, and the elliptical group in the center was truncated by the
water line as observed in the "Diana and Actaeon" as Picasso placed a trapezoid

in the bottom.
Another quick notation is "Study of Two Persons, One Seated, One
Standing" of March 1907, (52), where Picasso changed from the horizontal
format compressing the sides into a vertical as he returned to El Greco's "Holy
Trinity." (42A). Here the wings of the Holy Ghost were united with the angel on
the left and its long dress was sketched. The triangle reappeared at the base as
seen in the line of Christ's right leg and the right leg of the angel. On careful
observation, the image of an Egyptian style figure may be discerned in the
sketch. What is important is that this signals the change to a vertical design.
In "Study of Six Persons, Four Women, A Medical Student and a Sailor" of
May 1907, (53), Picasso included the deer skull from "Diana and Actaeon" (43A)
but placed it alongside the triangle in his study. This skull was a transformation
of the left foot and ankle of Christ in "Holy Trinity." (42A).
The following examples support my contention that Picasso relied heavily
on El Greco's "Holy Trinity" (42A) at this stage of his development of "Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon." Anomalies exist in the sketchbooks such as a dog
nursing her pups which occurs in Sketchbook #6, with numerous pages filled
with this images that Picasso transformed from thee folds of the robe of God the
Father. Several sketches named "Study for a Woman in a Riding Habit" May
1907 are examples of how Picasso played with the broad stern of the angel in
"Holy Trinity," (42A) with what appears to be a very narrow waist, to create his
sketches.
Continuing to play in Sketchbook #7, Picasso recalled human pyramids in
the vertical progression of the figures in the "Holy Trinity," (42A) culminating in
the dove symbol of the "Holy Ghost in several studies. Also from the same
Sketchbook #7 we can see where Picasso "found" an owl in the feathers of the
angel with mauve and green clothes near the dark surround of the wing. The
owl, which he saw there, was addressed on several pages, two of which have a
drawing of owls and birds. He also focused on the unusual bent ear of this angel
in "Page of Studies, Birds and Ear" May-June 1907 (54) and in a reverse profile
"Page of Studies, Birds and a Head of a Woman" May-June 1907. An owl is a
symbol for Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom who introduced several of the

arts and crafts necessary for civilization. Born from the head of her father Zeus,
Athena makes an important statement. The idea that she was born from a male
underscores her relationship with men, both divine and human. In the human
realm, Athena consistently becomes a protector of heroes, while in the divine
she completely avoids sexual liaisons with gods. When represented by an owl,
Athena is the owl since she was involved with shape shifting and would appear
sometimes as an owl. How appropriate as a symbol for Gertrude Stein!
I believe that the "Eleventh Study for Six Persons: Five Females and the
Sailor" May 1907, (55), and the "Twelfth Study of Six Persons, Four Women and
a Medical Student and a Sailor May 1907, (56) were the final studies for "Les
Demoiselles d' Avignon" as they most closely resemble the final arrangement of
the figures and the space. In the twelfth study of six persons, Picasso has
merged the sailor into the nude with raised arms.
There are hundreds of studies for the individuals who will appear in the
final painting. Many of these resulted from the studies Picasso did from the
works cited above. Rubens' nude on the left of his "The Judgment of Paris" 163538, pose for many of the nudes with raised arms. An example is the gouache (Z
VI, 906) in the collection of Robert and Lisa Sainsbury at the University of East
Anglia or Sketchbook #4, 4V. The classical "Hecules Resting" in the Louvre
Museum posed for Picasso's androgynous versions of "Woman Standing" of
1907. See Sketchbook #3, 43R (Z XXVI 39), for an example. Also, the classic "Boy
With Removing a Thorn from his Foot" was turned into a female with a leg
resting on the knee in many of Picasso's studies. See for example, the pastel
"Study for the Seated Woman in the Center in an Armchair, winter 1906-1907, (Z
XXII, 473).
THE PAINTING -- "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
Having looked at some of the many studies that Picasso did to create the
final painting, we can now look at how these evolved into the final version. This
is a painting with an emphasis on form with little of the sentimental or
humanistic concerns of Picasso's earlier work. Recall that during the winter of
1906, he had started planning a major work perhaps responding to the death of
Cezanne in October 1906. Picasso intended for this painting to be an important

work from its very beginning and exercised great care in the manner in which
the canvas was chosen, stretched, and prepared for painting, doing this work
himself. Nearly eight feet square, the painting was unusual in its size as well as
its proportional dimensions. Leo Stein recalled "I had some pictures relined, and
Picasso decided that he would have one of his pictures too treated like a classic,
though in reverse order---he would have the canvas lined first and paint on it
afterwards" (Stein 175).
This square format of "Ls Demoiselles d'Avignon" may be seen in
Zurbaran's "Funeral of St. Bonaventure (1A). as line moving from the lower left
to the mask of the seated figure in "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon repeated the
slope of St. Bonaventure The miters and crown on the left of (1A) relate to the
raised arms of Picasso's central figures. The direct eye contact with the viewer
(almost an hypnotic stare) that Picasso's figures display had an origin in the
background figures in (1A). This device continued to be used in several Picasso
works after this painting. A detailed study of elements borrowed from Zurbaran
was described in detail in the section above on the studies.
El Greco's influence was envisioned as clearly influencing the picture and
is often presented as a source. Many of the studies from the early spring until
summer definitely show the role that El Greco's work played in the solution of
the composition.
In 1965, I presented a comparison of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" with El
Greco's "Agony in the Garden" (40E) in my master's thesis at he University of
Iowa School of Art and Art History. (Oakes). A look at "Agony in the Garden"
(sometimes referred to as "The Mount of Olives") (40E) reveals how El Greco's
space influenced Picasso's development of the dynamics of his composition. He
placed his figures on a framework suggested by the El Greco painting. Space
was compressed so that the two-dimensionality of the painting was emphasized.
The emotional state of Christ on the evening before the Passion was expressed in
the way El Greco impacted the composition with light and dark shapes colliding
as the sky crashes into the rocks that surround Christ. Picasso utilized several of
the major lines that run through the El Greco. The "S" curve, the vertical division
of the figures on the left, and the sloping oval "cocoon" shape containing the
sleeping disciples were all repeated by Picasso. Frank Rutter tells us that "El

Greco was rediscovered by Cezanne" and that Cezanne was "attracted by the
three-dimensional design of El Greco. Cezanne, himself an extremist in some
respects, was insidiously drawn towards the extreme mannerism in the works of
El Greco's last period. On these late works, rather than on the masterpieces of
Greco's middle period, Cezanne based much of his own practice." (Rutter 2)
Thus Picasso, in studying Cezanne, could quite naturally have recalled El
Greco, whom we know Picasso had never really abandoned as a master. Leo
Steinberg quoted Picasso as saying that El Greco's pictures were already cubist
in structure. (Picasso qtd. in Steinberg 131).
Barr wrote "As the painting (the "Demoiselles) developed it is also
possible that memories of El Greco's compact figure composition and angular
highlights of his draperies, rocks and clouds may have confirmed the suggestion
drawn from Cezanne." Barr reproduced the "Assumption of the Virgin" to
illustrate his statement. (Barr 54 and 256).
Gomez de la Serna, a Spanish writer and friend to Picasso at this time,
recalled that Picasso's walls at thne "Bateau Lavoir," where Picasso lived and
worked, were decorated with reproductions of El Greco's work. (de la Serna qtd.
in Penrose 16 and 39).
Others have made the association with El Greco. In 1980, Ron Johnson, reemphasized the El Greco influence, but pointed directly to El Greco's
"Apocalyptic Vision" (40F) in the Metropolitan Museum of as a possible source
for "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." (Rubin 236 and 98).

MASKS
Picasso had an early appreciation for the role of masks as shown in his
painting "Mask: Bride of El Greco" 1900 (57), which also demonstrated his
acknowledged admiration for El Greco. This elongated mask is quite revealing
when compared with masks Picasso placed over faces in his paintings and
drawings in 1906-1907. A source for his own self portrait with a palette in the

autumn of 1906 was a head seen in El Greco's "Assumption of Mary" 1577, now
in the Art Institute of Chicago. A page of studies reveal how Picasso imagined
the collar and the palette from areas in the El Greco. Picasso flipped El Greco's
"Madonna and Child" ca. 1590, now in the collection of the Detroit Institute of
Arts, for the final mask in his portrait of Gertrude Stein. Also, El Greco's "St.
Louis, King of France" 1587-97, in the Louvre Museum, supplied the heads for
several studies of women with chignons in the winter of 1906. Thus, the work of
El Greco figured prominently in the development of the masked faces.
Picasso studied Greek sculptured marble heads and Sumerian heads in the
Louvre Museum as this art of the past was relevant to what Picasso was trying
to do with the features of the face. A look at Paul Gauguin's "Ovira" 1894-95
(58A) will demonstrate Picasso's interest in the expressive simplification of
features whose primitive mask-like features were applied to the faces of many
of his studies. For example see Picasso's "Page of Studies" done in the autumn of
1906 (58) and "Two Nudes Holding Hands" of 1906 (58.5), in a private collection.
Gauguin's "Teha'Amana" of 1892 and "Stele of Christ" 1894-96 must also have
interested Picasso.
His investigations into primitive art predate the time when the Fauve
artists were promoting masks from Africa, so Picasso could have sensed some
validation of his forward vision of using primitive art as a source of inspiration.
It has been documented that Picasso was interested in Iberian sculpture:
William Golding says that "in the heads of the two central "demoiselles" the
severe, regular ovals of the typically "Iberian" faces of 1906 give way to new,
asymmetrical shapes. The jaws and chins are much heavier and the bulging eyes
stare out vacantly at the spectator. The ears, previously almost always small and
compact, reach fantastically large proportions. (Golding qtd. in Hiltom 11).
Picasso's possession of the two Iberian heads in his studio allowed him
ample time to study how their simplified representations of the face might be
incorporated into his work. Picasso was intrigued with the prospect of using
masks in portraits. His studies showed Picasso that gendered identities could be
shifted with masks. Gertrude Stein, a female, took on the mannerisms of a male.
He was fascinated by her as attested by the ninety sittings for her portrait which
Picasso completed in the autumn of 1906. Picasso's interest in primitive art was

impacted during the painting of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" by a visit to the

Musee d'Ethnographie du Trocadero. According to Rubin, "Picasso's prior
explorations of archaic art brought to a head in his fascination with ancient and
Iberian sculpture, had prepared him, visually and psychologically, for the
sudden epiphany that would be produced by tribal objects in the Musee
d'Ethnographie du Trocadero. The Trocadero visit triggered the final alteration
of "The Demoiselles," which resolved Picasso's dissatisfactions with the large
canvas's "Iberian" incarnation by informing three of his figures's visages with
mysterious "Masks" that expressed otherness, savage sexuality, violence, and,
finally, horrors. (Rubin 16).
The visit to the Musee d'Ethnographie du Trocadero, Picasso later said,
hade made him "understand what painting was about." (Gilot 226).
The influence of masks from Africa is apparent in the head of the figure on
the left and the two on the right Golding compares the left one to Ivory Coast
masks and the two on the right to certain masks of French Congo origin. See
(59B). Picasso probably was introduced to African sculpture by Matisse or
Derain in 1905, and this explains some of the changes in style that occurred after
that time. The heads were transformed into masks, presenting a startling
confrontation in an already violent composition. (Golding qtd. in Hilton 11).
Picasso's study of classical form and his interest in primitive art shows
that his style was evolving from the sentimental subject-centered work of the
earlier periods and that he was preparing for a major synthesis of form. Picasso
again found what he was looking for hidden in Titian's "Diana and Actaeon." In
the trees he found the visual suggestion of the masked head on the upper right.
He constructed the mask of the seated figure from elements he found in the
head of Diana and the figures next to her. See "Study of the Woman on the Right
(59) and these two: "Study of Two Persons, Figure on the Right" (60), and "Study
of Two Persons, Figure on the Right (61). The "Study for the Head on the Right
(62) resulted from drawings Picasso did from Diana (43A) and the flipped torso
of El Greco's Christ in "Holy Trinity " (42A).
Two other masterworks may be considered. Firstly, the nude woman in
Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" (133A) who sits on drapery with her elbow

resting on her leg and with her eyes fixed on the viewer. This coupled with
Manet's use of flat overlapping color planes, surely must have contributed to
Picasso's development of flat color areas. Secondly, the "Nike of Samothrace"
could have suggested the dynamics of the figure in motion in the upper right of
Picasso's painting. Both the Manet and the statue of Nike are in the Louvre
Museum.
What does one see when facing "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon?" Five nudes
fill up most of the frame space. However, although nude, none of the figures
display the sensuality of Bouguereau, Ingres, Delacroix and other harem scene
painters. Picasso has robbed these figures of their sexual identity by
minimalising any sex defining characteristics. Their poses seem awkward,
contorted. However, there is some grace to the two figures in the center as their
calm masks with chins tucked in slightly contrast with the violent color and
shapes of the two masked figures on the right. Their skin tones are noticeably
lighter than the other three. The Egyptian style of painting male skin tones
darker than that of females suggests to me that perhaps the figure on the left is
more male than female. The contrast of style, rather than making the painting
look unresolved, makes it even more shocking. These figures stare back at us
turning our gaze upon ourselves. The warm tones of Picasso's rose period are
complimented by the cool patches of sky blue and torn clouds. Could the
fragments between the seated figure and the women in the center be pieces of a
broken mirror? Natasha Staller reminds us that superstitions warned of the
malevolent portent of fragments "when a mirror is broken, it announces that a
person has died." (Staller qtd. in Sierra 109, 105, 27). Staller also mentioned that
an animal's apparent sexual inversions signed death. (Staller qtd. in Sierra 13).
Theodore Chasseriau's "Orientalist Interior" 1850-52 (43G) in which an Algerian
is holding up a large mirror to a female with arms raised may be associated with
the possible symbolic use of the mirror.
Had Picasso laid to rest his confusion concerning his sexual identity? Do
the two women in the center of the painting represent his feminine nature which
he is suppressing as the more masculine figures on the right are ascendant? See
(63) a detail from "Holy Trinity" (42A) where Picasso has made the association of
the owl by seeing the suggested form of an owl in "Holy Trinity." He gave the
seated figure a head which rotates like that of an owl. Owls symbolize wisdom,

and as birds of the night and birds of prey, they have been embraced as a
symbol associated with psychic powers, the "angel of death." In Africa, the owl
is associated with witchcraft and sorcery. Does this figure with the mask and
head of an owl represent Gertrude Stein? Could he, like Stein, assume the
mannerisms of a male? Had Picasso chosen his gender? Was this the exorcism
he had performed? Picasso said "If we give a form to these spirits we become
free. This relates to the therapy of solving problems by "speaking them out."
(Picasso qtd. in Rubin 26).
FORMAL ANALYSIS
How did Picasso design "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon?" Picasso, by using
an almost square format, was able to contain the dynamics of the
figures in a composition which draws the viewer into the bull's eye of the center
which is the pubic area of the central figure. The interspaces, sometimes called
negative spaces by artists, are more active than what would normally be the
positive or figure areas. Flashes like lightening demand our attention. Picasso
loved knives and swords, as Staller reports, "but he was particularly fascinated
by knives, sabers, swords, scimitars --- weapons that wound and kill by cutting."
angles and points of pain occur throughout this painting. The still life went
through numerous versions in the studies. At one time the crescent symbol of
Diana was transformed into a slice of watermelon which had been seen earlier
in the monk's garment in Zurbaran's "Funeral of St. Bonaventure" and Cezanne's
"Olympia." Picasso overlapped three slices -- perhaps an allusion to the "Holy
Trinity" of El Greco? A triangle occurs in most of the studies. Another Trinity
symbol? Finally, Picasso uses the forms of Christ's foot and the heads of the
cherubs attending that foot for his still life. Picasso gave us another clue by
including the bow of Actaeon beside the hind leg of the figure on the left. The
following diagrams may show how the geometric composition of "Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon"was organized formally. (Staller qtd. in Sierra 43, 44).
(64) Diagram A
In this diagram lines have been made by drawing lines connecting the
corners. Next, a vertical line was drawn through the the point where the
diagonals crossed. Next, an horizontal line was drawn at a right angle to the

vertical. Finally, the end points of the vertical and horizontal lines were
connected. The point where all these lines cross is the pubic area of the central
figure. The vertical line crosses where her arms form a "V" behind her head,
moves beside her face down to the pubic area, continues down one side of her
leg and touches the apex of the tilted table holding the fruit. The horizontal line
moves through the waists of the two figures on the left, past the center point
touches a white shard and moves to the tip of the nose on the mask ending
where the buttock of the top figure on the right meets the elbow of the seated
figure on the right. Diagonals relate to the heads of the figures on the left and
the side of the mask of the top figure on the right. Another diagonal touches the
hand of the figure on the left, moves to the knee and forms a right angle with
the leg of the second figure from the left. Another diagonal forms the jaw of the
figure on the left, moves through the armpit and slanted breasts of the second
figure and picks up the contour of the thigh of the seated figure. The next
diagonal touches thehair of the central figure, forms the breast of the top figure
on the right and connects that breast with thee lower torso following the
buttock.
(65) Diagram B
A circle shows how the various shapes radiate around the central point
containing the eye movement inside the frame with the center point as the focal
point to which we keep returning when looking at the painting.
(66) Diagram C
In this diagram, a line has been drawn down an obvious vertical division
of the painting. Once this is established, the remainder of the painting, may be
divided vertically with a line passing between the eyes of the middle figure.
New diagonals now relate to the hand at the top left.
(67) Diagram D
This diagram shows "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" divided into thirds by
vertical lines.

(68) Diagram E
Adding a diagonal line from the upper left corner to the base of the second
segment of Diagram D plujs a second diagonal from the lower left to the upper
right of the second segment places the enter point of those diagonals on the
waist of the second figure. Lines connect the right shoulder of the first figure
with the left knee of the second figure. The left elbow of the second figure is
lined up with the hair, left eye, nose, right breast of the center figure. It
continues down to the lower left through the right knee / bow of the first figure.
he still life table parallels this line and the first diagonal contains the other side
of the tilted table. Another diagonal drawn from the top right corner touches the
elbow of the standing figure on the right, crosses the middle of the curve in the
back of this figure and hits the mask of the seated figure moving through a
point where the waist and the thigh of the seated figure meet. Its companion
diagonal in this segment lines the raised arm of the standing figure. As it
continues down, it goes between the eyes of the seated figure as this line
completes its journey down to the lower right corner. The white in this area
parallels the diagonal lines in this segment.
(69) Diagram F
These parallelograms and diagonals demonstrate the complex geometrical
relationships in "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." See the repeating angles which
align with the shapes of the figures.
(70) Diagram G
This division into four equal vertical panels places the figure on the left
inside what appears to be an interior space. The protruding foot is crossed at the
heel and the thumb touches this line at the top. The remaining three panels seem
to be outside. Note the containment of the second figure in the second panel,
how the center figure is bisected by the center line and how the masks line up
exactly on the edge of the fourth panel. The angular right pectoral of the top
figure is associated beneath the left breast of the seated figure.

(71) Diagram H
Two identical triangles composed of the same lines connect in an
interesting manner in Diagram H.
(72) Diagram I
This diagram outlines two complimentary shapes which might be
described as phallic or thumb-shaped. One points downward as the other copies
its shape pointing upward. Thumbs down on the feminine figures in the center
and thumbs up on the more masculine figures on the right. A reversing "S"
curve flows between these two large shapes. Has Picasso cast his vote
concerning his sexuality?
(73) Diagram J
Picasso connects the top of the painting with the bottom with this space
defying chasm between the two pairs of figures. The three figures on the left
appear flat like paper cutouts compared to the two overlapping figures on the
right in which Picasso has provided more volume and value shifts.
Picasso, Salmon tells us, had "meditated on geometry" - which the
Demoiselles's sketchbooks do but little to confirm." as cited by Rubin. However,
these diagrams demonstrate that Picasso did consider geometry during the
construction of his composition for all these associations could not be
coincidental. (Salmon qtd. in Rubin 20).
(74) Diagram K
This diagram shows some of the compositional lines and spatial
relationships between "Holy Trinity" by El Greco and Picasso's "Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon."
Picasso continued working from El Greco after "Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon" for although Picasso's "Three Women" 1908-1909 , displays a theme

occurring in the bathers of Cezanne, the facets without any space between them,
the solidity of the ground, the sharing of contours and the bas-relief
representation of the figures had been discovered in the close interaction of the
figures in El Greco's "Holy Trinity" (42A). Various shapes are repeated by
Picasso and the cloth draped over the leg is common to both paintings. His raids
on the masters had worked. Picasso was ready to explore and he and Braque
would soon work together to create Cubism.
"Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" marked a turning point in the history of art.
Since the Renaissance, artists had been concerned with the representation of
objects in an illusory space. Their solution to this problem was to paint a flat
canvas or panel so as to make it look like it had a third dimension. The surface
was essentially smooth to support this illusion of depth, and a natural and
usually consistent lighting was employed to heighten the effect of actual objects
existing in a space organized by principles of perspective used by artists since
the fifteenth century. Picasso rejected this distinction between figures and
background space when he placed equal importance on the shape of the figures
and the shapes surrounding the figures. The women of "Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon confront us from a shallow depth. Planes slide into adjacent planes.
Flat colors replace the volumes which would have been created by light and
shadow modeling. Picasso told Gomez de la Serna "I paint objects as I think
them, not as I see them. (Picasso qtd. in de la Serna 484).
Picasso and Braque first met in 1907. When Braque saw "Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon" for the first time, he had difficulty accepting it as did many of
Picasso's colleague, yet he recognized that it was a revolutionary work. Braque
said "but in spite of your explanations you paint as if you wanted to force us to
eat rope or drink paraffin." (Olivier 97, 98). Initially, he followed Picasso's lead.
His "Nu" of 1907-08 reveals this influence. After "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon"
Picasso's relationship with Fernande was ending. Gedo says as Fernande moved
to the background of his life, "...the foreground occupied by Braque, their
explorations and their intimacy. Fernande, who had mistrusted Braque from the
beginning, now saw him clearly as a rival. Picasso's passion was being
channeled into his work with Braque, and Fernande's role in his life had
become, as Gertrude Stein observed, more material than sexual. Picasso would
later say, "Braque is the woman who has loved me the most." (Gedo 84).

Max Jacob was traumatized by the change that was occurring. Gedo
reports "That Max Jacob understood the full import of the change is suggested
by the fact that he fell ill immediately afterward and did not recover until
Picasso brought him to his new apartment to convalese. ...In later years, Jacob
compared his love for Picasso became so involved with Braque. (Gedo 83).
Penrose commented on the reactions of Picasso's friends upon seeing "Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon" in 1907, "Among the surprised visitors trying to
understand what had happened he (Picasso) could hear Leo Stein and Matisse
discussing it together. The only explanation they could find amid their guffaws
was that he was trying to create a fourth dimension. In reality, Matisse was
angry. His immediate reaction was that the picture was an outrage, an attempt
to ridicule the modern movement. He vowed he would find some means to
"sink" Picasso and make him sorry for his audacious hoax. (Penrose 130).Leo
Stein lost all interest in Picasso and called the painting "a horrible mess, (Rubin
20) and Gertrude Stein called it "a veritable cataclysm." (Stein qtd. Rubin 20).
Salmon said "Nudes were born whose distortion came as no surprise,
prepared for it as we were by Picasso himself, by Matisse, Derain, Braque, van
Dongen, and earlier by Cezanne and Gauguin. It was the hideousness of the
faces that froze the half-converts with horror. (Salmon qtd. Rubin 42-52).
The art dealer Kahnweiler recalled "...that Picasso had been abandoned by
all at that time, ...And Derain said to me personally: "Well we will find Picasso
hanged behind that stretcher one day," so desperate did that undertaking seem.
He was absolutely, appallingly alone. (Derain qtd. Rubin 237).
Picasso spoke about his isolation and the lack of understanding from the
Steins and Braque, "Yes, I was alone, very much alone. (Vallentin 150).
Picasso turned his painting to the wall. The first public showing was in
1916 in the Salon d'Antin in Paris. It was purchased by Jacques Doucet in 1924
who sold it to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1939. Until that
time not many persons had seen the painting.
Jean Cocteau said the minor Cubist painters would hide their latest

inventions, fearing that Picasso would steal some trivial idea on which they had
staked their hopes of fame. They knew what he was capable of doing. Picasso
warned, "To copy others is necessary but to copy oneself is pathetic. (Picasso
qtd. Penrose 191). He was most at ease working with images suggested to him
which he could alter through the magic of metamorphosis. He could find his
subjects anywhere. According to Francoise Gilot, Picasso often said, "When
there's anything to steal, I steal." (Picasso qtd. Gilot).
Picasso tried to integrate all these various influences. Some feel that he
never really resolved the work, leaving the many different directions for us to
witness in its unresolved state. Rubin called "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon "a
laboratory in which Picasso attempted to discover the deeper nature of his own
erotic desire by probing the mysteries of what Freud called the life forces, the
primal source of procreation, in which sexual activity and artistic creativity are
as yet undifferentiated. But Picasso soon found that in order to comprehend
Eros, he has also to confront Thanatos. He would use the knowledge gained as
he himself later made clear-to overcome anxieties and exorcise personal
demons. (Rubin 18).
"Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" would eventually rise from the obscurity of
its beginnings to achieve international fame and to become the centerpiece of
the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. It predicted Picasso's future work
and anticipated the course of art during the twentieth-century.

Works Cited
Cezanne's paintings related to "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" include: "A Modern
Olympia" 1873-74, "Temptation of St Anthony"1875-1877, "Eternal Feminin"
1877, "Amorous Shepherd," "Three Bathers"1879-82 owned by Matisse, "Five
Bathers"1885-87, "Large Bathers"1899-1906 and "Les Grande Baigneuses"1900-05.
Read, Sir Herbert quoted by Alfred M. Frankfurter 'Picasso in Retrospect: 1938 \
1900, The Comprehensive Exhibit in New York and Chicago', The Art News Vol.
38 7 (1939) p.21. Print.
Gedo, Mary Mathews Picasso: Art as Autobiography (The University of
Chicago Press: Chicago 1980) p. 78. Print.
Picasso, Pablo conversation with Daniel Kahnweiler December 2, 1933
published in 'Hut Entretiens avec Picasso' 1952 p. 24. Print.
Gedo, p. 78. Print.
Gedo, p. 80. Print.
Gedo, p. 80. Print.
Rubin, p. 24. Print.
Stein, 1947 p. 175. Print.
Oakes, John Warren Influences and Sources in the Work of Pablo Picasso 19001906, M.A. Thesis, University of Iowa School of Art and Art History: Iowa City,
Iowa, 1966 ). Print.
Rutter, Frank El Greco, 1541-1614, (E. Weyhe: London, New York, 1930) p. 2.
Steinberg, Leo "Resisting Cezanne: Picasso's 'Three Women'"Art in America, 6,
November-December 1978 131. Print.
Barr, Alfred H. Picasso: 50 Years of His Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1946 54 and 256. Print.

de la Serna, Gomez Picasso Turin, 1945 6-7. Print.

Golding, John "The Demoiselles d'Avignon," The Burlington Magazine, V-C 662
May 1958 160. Print.
Barr, Alfred H. Picasso: 50 Years of His Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1946 106. Print.
de la Serna, Gomez quoted by Sir Roland Penrose. Picasso - His Life and Work
(Harper: New York, 1958) pp. 16 and 39. Print.
On the influence of El Greco: "We have seen that from the time of Barr's early
remarks about the Demoiselles (above, p, 25), El Greco's influence was
envisioned as clearly playing some role in the picture. And in 1980 Ron Johnson,
in his imaginative article about Picasso's literary sources, not only reemphasized
the El Greco influence, but pointed directly to El Greco's "Apocalyptic Vision" in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, known since 1908 as "The Opening of the Fifth
Seal" (fig.200) as a possible direct source for the Demoiselles. Johnson saw the
latter's "segmented blue and white backgropund curtain with its "strange
relationships between the figures and the drapery, the broken angular frames of
the drapery, the unusual gestures, and the nearly square canvas without much
setting" directly with "Apocalyptic Vision." Johnson's observation generated
interest in many quarters, although his was riot, in fact, the first text to signal
the affinity between these two particular pictures. Neither Johnson, nor later
scholars writing on the subject appear to have been aware that in 1973 the
Spanish poet and art critic Santiago Amon himself (and, for that matter, Johnson
too) may have gotten the cue for this juxtaposition from a 1957 German
publication or, more probably, from a 1968 issue of Life magazine. Arnon's text
was never translated, however, and no notice seems to have been taken of it at
the time in art-historical circles.
By 1986, at least two scholars, clearly unaware of Amon's work and of each
other's parallel interests, were independently working to explore the
relationship between the Demoiselles and "Apocalyptic Vision." In May of that
year, the Danish art historian Rolf Laesse completed and sent to the Gazette des
beaux-arts a text titled "A source : New York, 1975) p.11. Print.

Rubin, p. 16. Print.

Gilot, Francoise and Carlton Lake Life with Picasso (McGraw-Hill a Signet Book:
New York, 1964) p. 226. Print.
Golding quoted by Hilton, p. 11. Print.
Staller, p. 20 quoting from Guichot y Sierra 'Supersticiones Populare.' nos. 109,
105, 27. Print.
Staller, p. 13. Print.
Picasso quoted by Rubin, p. 26. Print.
Staller pp. 43-44. Print.
Salmon, Andre quoted by Rubin p. 20. Print.
Picasso quoted by Gomez de la Serna in de Salas, p. 484. Print.
Olivier, Fernande Souvenirs Intime pp. 97-98. Print.

CHAPTER V
Metamorphosis and Surrealism 1917-1937
EXAMPLES FROM 1917
"Bullfight" 1917 (77) (78) (79) (80) (81)
Picasso metamorphosized the work of Poussin in the years following his
involvement with the creation of Cubism. Poussin's "Tancred and Erminia"
(77A) was a fertile source for the following drawings of "Bullfights" in 1917: See
(77), (78), (79), (80) and (81). "Tancred and Erminia" also supplied the linear
rhythms and contours for the complex "Bullfight" drawings later in 1923: (87)
and (88).
"Parade" A study 1917 (82)
"Drop Curtain for Parade" 1917 (83)
Meanwhile, in 1917, while he was in Rome, Picasso worked with Satie,
Cocteau and Diaghilev on the ballet "Parade." A study (82) and the "Drop
Curtain for Parade" (83) were designed from the horses, angels and other figure
groups gleaned from Poussin's "Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite." (83A).
"The Happy Family" of 1917-1918 (84)
One of Picasso's earliest acknowledged copies is "The Happy Family" of
1917-1918, (84) after LeNain's "Four Figures at Table" (84A). A detail is shown in
(84A). Picasso changed the scale of the figures and applied a pointillistic pattern
which focuses on some of the features of the figures, relating the drab
seventeenth century painting to the vivid colors of the nineteenth century.
Picasso, the "time traveller," moved through the centuries of art history, uniting
the styles of different periods, through the magic of his own method of
metamorphosis.
Alfred Barr noted the similarity of Picasso's female in the "Sleeping

Peasants" in 1919, (85) to the figures of Ingres. I suggest that a specific figure in
El Greco's "Purification of the Temple" (85A) has been reversed by Picasso. The
numerous folds in the clothing are alike in both paintings. Poussin's Midas and
Bacchus" (85B) also has a female in a corresponding pose and has a male figure
asleep directly above the woman (Barr 106).
EXAMPLE FROM 1921
"The Three Musicians" 1921 (86)
Nicolas Tournier's "The Concert" (86A) is composed of numerous planes in
varying positions thrusting into space. These planes unite the figures, and the
many different patterns displayed in this work suggested to Picasso a similar
subject and solution for "The Three Musicians" 1921, (86), which is an abstracted
transformation of "The Concert." This example of Synthetic Cubism presents
numerous layers of depth through the use of overlapping planes. Picasso also
used various shapes, objects, angles and textures which he rearranged in his
crowded, but ordered composition. Picasso's "Musicians with Masks" (86P) is a
similar work.
EXAMPLE FROM 1923
"Bullfight" 1923 (87) and (88)
Two more pencil drawings of the "Bullfight" (87) and (88) were drawn in
1923 after Poussin's "Tancred and Erminia" (77A).
EXAMPLES FROM 1929
"Woman in Armchair" 1929 (89)
The anguished head of Picasso's "Woman in Armchair" (89) was produced
from the headdress of Ingres' "The Bather" (89A). The armchair was made from
the cloth in the foreground of (89A). Ingres' pool was elevated to the same plane
as the background wall in Picasso's painting.

"Seated Bather" 1929 (90)

Picasso's "Seated Bather" 1929 (90) also had its origin in a Picasso favorite
Ingres' "Turkish Bath" (17A). The lines for his figure can be found in the
composition of the foreground figures in the painting by Ingres. Compare
diagrams (90A) and (90B).
EXAMPLE FROM 1930
"Amours de Jupiter et de Semele" 1930 (91)
"Amours de Jupiter et de Semele,"(91) an etching from the Vollard series
printed by Picasso in 1930, recalls the crowded "Allegory of Time and Love" by
Bronzino (91A). Note how the limbs of the figures repeat the frame lines of both
pictures.
EXAMPLE FROM 1931
"Still Life on a Table" 1931 (92)
In 1931, Picasso transformed Ingres' "Turkish Bath" (17A) into a "Still Life
on a Table" (92). Points of reference are the central woman in profile of (3A)
whose head, neck, torso and hair were seen by Picasso as a pitcher. Round
forms to the right became fruit on a platter. The horizontal head of a woman was
seen as a light oval base of the fruit platter. The thighs and breasts of Ingres'
figures are visible in the table legs and drapery of Picasso's table.
EXAMPLES FROM 1932
"Girl Before a Mirror" 1932 (93)
Picasso's "Girl Before a Mirror" (93) is a masterful balance of expressive
content with decorative design and recalls Titian's "Venus With a Mirror" (93A).
Beyond the obvious comparison of the subjects of these paintings, note the rich
patterns of the various drapes in Titian's painting which serve as decorative
areas in Picasso's painting. He used the veil and the angle of the woman's head,

the horizontal sweep of the arm as well as the arm of the cupid holding the
mirror, the roundness of the figure and the rear view of the cupid. Clearly,
Picasso was associating his current lady, Marie-Therese Walter with the goddess
of love.
"Woman's Head" 1932 (94)
This was reinforced by Picasso's discovery of a detail in Francois Boucher's
"Venus and Cupid" (94A) and (94B) and the detail (94C) suggesting MarieTherese Walter's profile, an image Picasso translated into his bas-relief sculpture
"Woman's Head" 1932, (94), (94P) and (94Q) and many other drawings,
paintings and sculptures whose unusual proportions were seen in the detail of
the Boucher.
EXAMPLES FROM 1934
"Cinesias et Myrrhine" 1934 (95)
For his "Cinesias et Myrrhine" 1934, (95) Picasso took liberties with a
drawing by Thomas Rowlandson (95A). Note the repeat of the frame on the left.
The head of Picasso's woman occurs as feathers in (95A). The breasts, left arm
and torsos of both women posed for Picasso's two figures.
"Minotaure Avengle" 1934 (96)
The magic of Picasso's "Minotaure Avengle" 1934, (96) came from
Delacroix's "Hercules and Alcestis" (96A). The Blind Minotaur was seen in the
cave walls combined with the figure of Hercules. The young girl with a dove
was discovered in the area of the left arm and the hair of the figure of Alcestis in
(96A). The dove can be found near Alcestis's right hand. The light area on the
right of (96A) was transformed into the boat and sailors by Picasso.
In kind, Delacroix had adopted Rubens' "Adoration of the Magi" (96B) for
his "Hercules and Alcestis" (96A). These influences were combined by Picasso
with another work by Delacroix, the "Abduction of Arab Women by African
Pirates" (98A). Picasso saw the upturned head of the Minotaur in the dark

shaded side of the rock behind the figures in the center of (98A). The sailors and
boat may have been first suggested by the sailors in (98A); however, the curve of
the boat's prow in (96) follows the curve of the back and leg of the sailor in the
water. Picasso's sailors are imagined in the forms of the distant rocks from (98A)
and the sailor in the boat. The pigeon and the girl were found in the light areas
of the woman in the center of (98A). Note the feather-like light areas of her
dress. Tones in the landscape on the left side of (98A) plotted the standing figure
of (96).
"Au Cabaret" 1934 (97)
Louis Le Nain's "Peasants at Supper" (84A) and Durer's "Man in Despair"
(97B) served Picasso when he executed his print "Au Cabaret" 1934, (97). The
horizontal composition and the seated male on the left came from (84A). The
standing male on the extreme left of (97), a Picasso self-portrait, was modelled
after the male on the left of (97B). The bare arms and legs of the seated male on
the left of (97) and the lines defining his muscles show Picasso's interest in
Durer's shading of the "Man in Despair." The arch in the upper left of (97) was
found in the upper left of (97B). The triangle of three heads is topped in both
(97) and (97B) by a haunting head looking directly out of the picture toward the
viewer. The bearded musician was perceived in the area under the bent left arm
of the "Man in Despair." His curly hair explains the curly beard of Picasso's
musician. For the dancing woman, Picasso's imagination combined the head
and chest of the standing figure in (97B) with what he saw as the form of a
figure in the cross-hatching next to the left side of the standing figure. The left
bicep of the "Man in Despair" became the right hip of the dancer. The seated
figure on the right of (97) is just barely hinted at in the shaded landscape forms
which Picasso coupled with the head of the reclining female in (97B).
"Four Girls with Chimera" 1934 (98)
Picasso's "Four Girls with Chimera" 1934, (98) was also based on Delacroix's
"Abduction of Arab Women by African Pirates" (98A). The Chimera's neck was
created from the central rock of (98A). The head was made from the central
woman's torso and the pirate holding her. The wings are the rocks on the left.
The body is the area of rocks and water under the foot of the pirate in the middle. The

boat is the boat. The profile of the little blond girl on the right of (98) can be seen in the
area of the shoulder of the pirate on the right of (98A). The oar and this pirate's
fingers form her nose and mouth. The light spot on the other pirate's left
shoulder marks the position of her hands. The other girls may be found by
moving leftward from her location.
"Minotaur and Nude - Encre de Chine" 1934 (99)
One example of Picasso using the work of Rubens is his adaptation of that
artist's "Descent from the Cross" (101A). Picasso saw a bull's head in the
billowing clothes of the figure on the top left and he saw the woman in his
drawing "Minotaur and Nude" 1934, (99) in the twisted torso of Christ whose
foot and left leg are in the position of her leg and foot. Her breasts are the head
and shoulder of the bearded male in (101A). Her face may be found in the cloth
around Christ's right foot. Another reference is the penetrating ground plane of
of both pictures, from the front edge of the painting lading in a curved plane
backward and up into the picture.
"Woman in Candlelight, Combat Between Bull and a Horse - Encre de Chine"
1934 (100)
Picasso recalled Delacroix's "Death of Sardanapalus" (92A) for the
inspiration to create his "Encre de Chine" 1934 (100) This drawing again pits
horse against bull.
In 1803, Ingres painted "Venus Wounded by Diomedes" (111A) using an
engraving by Antonio Tempesta, the "Victory of Joshua" 1613, (108B) as his
source. First, let us compare these two before relating them to Picasso's
drawing. The "Victory of Joshua" will be listed in the column on the left and
"Venus Wounded by Diomedes" will be assigned to the right column.

"Victory of Joshua"
A lance carried by a plumed
soldier in the middle =

"Venus Wounded by Diomedes"

the wand of the lady in the

chariot.
Foreground fallen warrior =

foreground fallen warrior.

Fallen horse on the right =

the garment Venus holds in

her left hand.

Fallen horse on the left =

cloud forms in the lower left.

Front of the horse in the middle =

rear end of the horses.

Saddle and chest of the horse

lying on the right =
chariot wheel.
Various body parts of the horses
in the foreground =

cloud forms.

The rearing horse on the right =

Venus.

Flowing horse's mane on the right = wings and garments on the

right.
Shapes to the left of the horse
in the middle =
headdress and armor of the
soldier.
Diagonal lines in the left
background =
The side of the horse on
the left =
The hand resting on the
horse's belly =
landscape =

horses' heads.

the bent knee of Diomedes.

the left hand of Diomedes

resting on his shield.A light area in the distant
the arm of Venus.

Picasso probably was aware of this adaptation by Ingres. In any event,

Picasso drew from "Victory of Joshua" (108B) for the fantastic imagery of his
(100). Here are the points of reference. Tempesta will again be listed on the left
as the source.
"Victory of Joshua"

"Encre de Chine"

Lines in the distant landscape =

the walls of the corrida.

The plume on the helmet on the soldier in the middle = the bull's wound.
The mane of the horse in the distant left and the wrinkles in the neck =
the swirls of the candlelight.
The face of this horse =
The right arm of the soldier
riding the above horse =

A shape under the horse's

mouth =
An arm on the right
holding a spear =

the candle.

the nose of the girl holding

the candle.

the girl's hand.

the left hind leg of
Picasso's horse.

Vertical lines
under the above arm =

the horse's tail.

The horse's left and

right hind legs
in the lower left =

the horse's right hind leg.

The contour of the horse's back

meeting the dark shape

of the fallen warrior =

the dark belly of the horse.

A light horizontal area connecting

with the chest of the horse lying
on the right side forming a right
angle =
the left front leg of the
horse.
A negative space of distant
landscape and figures from the
above light area up the dark
right arm on the right side =

the horse's head.

A line curved to define

the left shoulder and
A part of a horse
in the lower right =
A line of the distant
landscape and the
spears on the left =

Smoke and sky =

the right hoof of the bull.

the back and shoulders of

the bull.
a flag at the top of the
picture.

Shapes and forms to

the left of the horse
in the middle distance =

the curved horns and face of

the bull.
EXAMPLES FROM 1935

"Minotauromachy" print of 1935 (101)

Picasso's "Minotauromachy" print of 1935 (101) was incorporated from

several masterworks and is compositionally more complex than his previous
etchings of Minotaurs. A relative of the blind Minotaur of (96), this Minotaur has
vision. His anatomy was obtained from Delacroix's Hercules in (96A). The head
is a negative space made positive from Tintoretto's "The Miracle of the Slave"
(101D). The contour of the right side of the Minotaur's head was found
beginning under the left armpit of the floating figure of St. Mark in (101D).
Continue down to his hand to find the snout of the Minotaur. Leaves on the
tree account for the curly headed beast. Cloud patterns and the raking cornice
on the right side of (101D) were repeated by Picasso as clouds and a mountain
peak. At the far left of (101) Picasso placed a bearded man climbing up a ladder
which may represent the artist's father. This head appears to be an exact copy of
the bearded man and ladder in Rubens] "Descent from the Cross" (101A). The
Minotaur's right hand is silhouetted against the light of a candle held by a girl.
This refers to a dark shape under the head of St. Mark in (101D). Light radiates
from the head of St. Mark. In (101), two women observe from a balcony as do
two figures in (101D). However, the models for Picasso's women are to be found
in the dark columns of (101D) where a wrapped head and a head in dark
shadow prompted Picasso to make his observers. The pigeon's shape is a
negative space between the left arm and chest of the man with a wrapped head.
The young girl with a candle was pieced together from the head of the person at
the base of the columns and the arm holding a broken staff in (101D). The head
of the horse and its left front leg were seen by Picasso in the folds of clothing on
the helmeted figure bending over the body of the Christian slave in (101D). The
left leg of the helmeted figure was used for the horse's leg. Curved ropes
suggested the horse's intestines spilling onto the ground. In addition, I see some
similarity with Rembrandt's "The Blindness of Tobit" (101B) and Rembrandt's
"Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet" (101 C). The Minotaur's head could also
have been imagined from the negative shape of the distant landscape under the
clouds in the "Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus" (101E) which could explain the
large scale of the bull's head, the exiting bearded figure, the observers, the
martyred figure, the horse's hind quarters and the shapes in the foreground of
(101).

Two other works played a role in the development of "Minotauromachy"

(101). They are Boulanger's "Mazeppa" (101F) and Antonio Tempesta's "Victory
of Joshua" (108B).
"Mazeppa" has the elevated observers in the dark area just above the
horizontal ground past the horse. Picasso saw two girls in these shades of the
upper left. This work is a key source for the lady bullfighter tied to the back of
the horse. A horizontal piece of cloth between her bare breasts turning
downward at forty-five degrees is found in the rope across the left leg of the
nude on the back of the horse in (101F). The corresponding turn downward is
the left arm and arm of the bare-backed man on the right tying the rope. This
back is the light area in Picasso's print between the tail of the horse and the
abdomen of the Minotaur. Picasso read the shadow down the middle of the back
as a sailboat; his waistline became the horizon. The head of Picasso's bullfighter
was discovered by Picasso to the right of the man's hand. A small shape next to
this man's cheek suggested the slender hand of Picasso's lady. Her breasts are
the abdomen and left knee of the figure on the back of the horse in (101F). His
left leg defined the waist of this woman. The suggested spilling of intestines
occurs under the belly of the horse in (101F). The woman's crossed legs are the
arms of the figure in the lower left. The left front leg of Picasso's horse may be
the rope held by the man on the left. The neck and chest muscles of the horse
are the folds to the left of the rope. The horse's head however, jumps to the hair
of the head overlapping the horse's head in (101F) explaining that unusual
anatomy of Picasso's head. The little girl holding the candle was modelled after
the man whose head and shoulders appear just above the bare-backed male on
the left side.
Minotaur and Maiden 1936 (102)
Picasso appears to have enjoyed compiling various works in which he
found connecting links or perhaps he fancied himself as the connection. In any
event, he presented another version of "Minotaur and Maiden" 1936, (102) which
is like (99) and yet reveals differences which can be attributed to Picasso's
redrawing of Delacroix's "Arab on Horseback" (102A). Here are the points of
comparison:

"Arab on Horseback"

"Minotaur and Maiden"

The paw of the lion =

the head of the Minotaur.

The mane of the lion =

the eye of the Minotaur.

the head of the Maiden.ad of the Arab =

The right front leg

of the horse =

the nose and mouth of the

Minotaur.

The back and cape

of the Arab =

The back of the Arab

and the horse =

the back of the Minotaur's

neck.

the back of the Minotaur.

The lion's face and eye =

The right hind leg of the lion =

the breast of the Maiden.

the right leg and foot of
the Minotaur.

The contour of the

underside of the horse's head = the shoulder of the
Minotaur.
Picasso was perfecting his skill of combining multiple sources during this
period which would culminate in the works of the next decade.

Works cited.
Barr, Alfred H. Picasso: 50 Years of His Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1946 106. Print.

CHAPTER VI
Protest and War - 1937-1946
EXAMPLES FROM 1937
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, German bombers, directed
by General Franco, destroyed a defenseless town named Guernica during a
bomb attack lasting over three hours. Incendiary bombs were also dropped and
machine guns were aimed at those seeking to escape the leveling of the small
town. This massacre of unprotected civilians, having no military force to defend
them, was traumatic news and the world was horrified. Within the week Picasso
gathered together his sources and resources and began what is considered to be
one of his finest paintings--"Guernica. In this work he has incorporated many
masterworks recalling subjects in the following works of art as he began his
studies for his masterpiece.
Guernica composition study dated May 1, 1937 (103)
A composition study (103), shows that Rembrandt's "Rape of Europa"
(103A), "The Return of the Prodigal Son" (103B) and "The Resurrection of
Lazarus" (103C) apparently were on Picasso's mind as he commenced his
compositional studies. The figure leaning out the window is present in (103B)
and (103C) contains a similar form, explaining how Picasso might have
imagined that strange profile, streamlined in the final stages of "Guernica."
Greuze's "The Return of the Prodigal Son" (103D) and "Entombment" (103E)
from the workshop of Titian also present examples of this classic witness whose
gestures imply amazement or horror at what is being seen. This initial sketch
(103) is a gestural analysis of the figure relationships and the compositional
design of Ingres's "Venus Wounded by Diomedes" (111A). This work played a
dominant role in the development of Picasso's composition. Every line of
Picasso's study has its counterpart in the contours of Ingres's painting which in
turn had its origin in another of Picasso's favorites, "The Victory of Joshua" by
Antonio Tempesta (108B).
Horse, also drawn on May 1, 1937 (104)

"Composition Study" May 1, 1937 (105)

"Head of a Horse" dated May 2, 1937 (106) and (107)
Picasso's Horse, (104) must have been bred from Rembrandt's "Ass of
Ballam" (104A). This work influenced a "Composition Study" (105) and two
studies titled "Head of a Horse" (106) and (107).
Picasso's "Composition Study for Guernica" (Arnheim #6) of May 1, 1937,
(105) has many elements which were derived from Ingres's "Venus Wounded by
Diomedes" (111A). The bull is a composite of the horses. A dark shadow behind
the ear of one horse is the right eye of the bull. The left eye of the front horse is
the left eye of the bull. Front and back contours and front legs of the horse in
(111A) and the bull in (105) match exactly. The streamlined head of a woman
looking out the window in (105) was constructed from the woman and the
wings in (111A). The forehead of the standing woman is the nose, and her neck,
the chin. The horse was formed from the oval shape of the shield and the clouds
in (111A). The right front leg of the horse follows the rim of the chariot wheel
continuing up the chariot's side contour, defining the front and neck of the
horse. The left leg of the horse projects out like the chariot's handle. The left leg
of Venus completes the horse's leg. The hind end of the bull is found under the
arm of Venus. The head of Picasso's fallen warrior is formed in the clouds
ending at the right armpit of the fallen warrior in the painting by Ingres. Notice
the dark arcs in the clouds which Picasso used as eyes.
Picasso saw the form of his Pegasus, the little flying horse, coming from the side
of the wounded horse by imagining this creature in shapes that he found
between the snake on the shield and a dark shadow adjoining the clouds in
(111A).
Guernica composition study (108)
On this same day, Picasso maintained his association with Rembrandt
whose "Rape of Proserpine" (108A) could have provided Picasso with the horse
and the head of the bull (108) which he might have adapted from the decorative

lion of the chariot in (108A). The fallen warrior and his association with the
horse, plus the bull leaping over the carnage like the proverbial cow "jumping
over the moon" are an allusion to Antonio Tempesta's "Victory of Joshua" (108B).
However, Ingres's "Venus Wounded by Diomedes" (111A) maintained a major
role in the evolution of "Guernica."
"Horse and Bull" undated (109)
Rembrandt's "Ass of Ballam" (104A) and the rounded forms and flowing
lines of Poussin's "Apollo Guarding the Herds of Admetus" (109A), helped
create the undated "Horse and Bull" (109). The ass in (104A) posed for both the
horse and the bull.
"Mother with Dead Child" May 9, 1937 (110)
Turning to Poussin, Picasso saw in the triangular mass of the "Massacre of
the Innocents" (110A) and (110B) the form for his "Mother with Dead Child"
(110). The elbow, head and shoulder of the male suggested the head of Picasso's
woman; his legs and toes became her arm and hand; the folds in the cloth under
the child suggested to Picasso the fingers shaped like sausages. The woman's
flowing garments pierce the air in both pictures. The origin of the kneeling
posture of Picasso's woman is obvious. The open ovals of the infant's eyes and
his inverted pose as well as the pleading gestures of the kneeling women may
be seen in Poussin's "Judgment of Solomon" (110C). Compare the mother with
dead child from the movie "Battleship Potemkin" (110D).
"Dream and Lie of Franco" etchings from January 8, 1937 (111) and (112)
On January 8, 1937, before he made "Guernica," Picasso did "Dream and Lie
of Franco" producing two etching plates (111) and (112). The first shows
evidence that Picasso was interested in Durer's Knight, Death and Devil"
engraving (111B) and "The Triumph of Death" engraving by Galle after Werex
(111A). The strange creation of Picasso originated in the form of the devil in
(111B). The intestines spilling onto the ground in (111) came from the legs under
the oxen in (111A). The center panel of (111) was taken from (111A) reversed.
The head of the bull was found under the head of the oxen. In (112) Picasso

drew the upper right panel from (111A). The horse is reversed because the
printing process for for etching reverses the image in printing if this is not taken
into account in the creation of the plate. Other reversals indicate that for some of
these panels Picasso was working directly on the plate from the other artists'
work. Look at the upper central panel of (111A) and also (111B). A study of
(111A) suggests that the spilling intestines in (111) were patterned after the
clouds in front of the chariot wheels.
The upper left panel of (112) contains a reversal of the forms in (111A) in
order to shape the horse. The horizontal clouds over the fallen man's head
became the horse's head. The curved clothing in the right of (111A), when
reversed, form the hind end of the horse in (112). The center panel of (112) uses
(111B) in its proper orientation to design the bull and the horse.
Guernica composition study May 9, 1937 (113)
This study (113) was created from the left arm of the father in Rembrandt's
"The Return of the Prodigal Son" (103B). This source also explains some of the
twisted anatomy at the base of (113). Vertical architectural shapes were
reconstructed from the background of the Rembrandt. However, the primary
source for (113) remains Ingres's "Venus Wounded by Diomedes" (111A).
The light which Picasso placed top center may have first illuminated
Bassano's "Samson Slaying the Philistines" (113D).
The woman in Rembrandt's Blinding of Samson (113B) with her arm
extended is another example of a figure in the same gesture as Picasso's woman
with the lamp.
A central figure in dark clothing from Rembrandt's "Judas Repentant"
(113C) provided Picasso with a model for the pose and the expression of the bull
in this study.
"Leg and Head of a Horse" May 10, 1937 (114)
Two horses' heads from Rubens' "Quos Ego Modello" (114A) were

combined by Picasso in his "Leg and Head of a Horse" (114). The work by
Rubens explains the multiple viewpoints of Picasso's heads. Considering his
past interest in presenting objects from different viewpoints in one form, Picasso
certainly must have seem the possibility of combining these horses into one
image.
Guernica study May 10, 1937 (115)
The relationship between Picasso's heads of the bull as in his May 10th
study (115) and Rembrandt's (113C) exists in particular in the unusual irises
overlapping the eyelids; the trim beard on the large jaw and the massive neck
twisted as the head looks to the left. Curves in the hat could have suggested the
horns to Picasso's imaginative mind.
"Head of a Woman" May 13, 1937 (116)
"Head of a Woman" (116) was a further distortion of (110B).
"Mother with Dead Child" May 13, 1937, (117)
"Mother with Dead Child" (117) has the feeling and movement of the
mother and child of Rubens' "The Horrors of War" (117B) but this work is
specifically a worked- over "Medea" by Delacroix (117A). In her headpiece
Picasso saw the nose, nostrils and small eye of his figure. Medea's ear was
transformed into a large eye. The head of Picasso's figure is turned radically in
opposition to her movement as is Medea's. Openings in the cave created the
jagged triangles on the left; other triangles were suggested by various areas in
the Delacroix.The allusion to Medea's killing her own children suggesting to
Picasso a relationship to the bombing of Guernica should not be overlooked.
Raphael's "Galetea" (117C) supplied Picasso with numerous opposing
triangular shapes and patterns. Note the large dark triangle in both (117C) and
(117). The head of the mother was fabricated from parts of the female being
held by the male. Her right arm equals the mother's nose. The beard of the male
is the dark space of the mother's mouth. The torso of the woman shaped the

chin of the mother. The mother's eye took form just over the woman's head. The
mother's breasts are shaped like bomb shells released from the light area of
Galetea's exposed hip. Curved contour lines refer to the linear divisions on the
sea shell. This might well suggest a bomb shell.
"Head of Weeping Woman" May 24, 1937 (118)
"Head of Weeping Woman" (118) was inspired by Antonio Mantegna's
"Lamentation of the Dead Christ" (118A).
"Head of Weeping Woman" May 24, 1937 (119)
"Head of Weeping Woman" (119) was discovered by Picasso in Rogier Van
Der Weyden's "Descent from the Cross" (119A).
Guernica first state photographed May 11, 1937 (120)
In the first state of the "Guernica" mural photographed May 11, 1937, (120)
Picasso had looked at the "Slaughter of the Innocents" by Rubens (120A) and
found the woman with arms outstretched on the right and in the left
foreground---the mother and child. The breasts on the woman by Rubens help
to clarify the unusual shapes decorating Picasso's woman.
A very interesting transformation occurs in this state. Looking at Delacroix's
sketches from Rubens' "Amazon Battle" (120B) one can, with some imagination,
perceive the head of the bull in the bent leg of the falling horse. The shoulder of
the horse and the right arm of the fallen warrior suggested the front legs of the
bull and the bull's head. Continuing, the right leg of the warrior was turned into
an arm thrusting vertically into space. Note the head of the warrior in (120B)
and how its placement is positioned under the suggested head of a bull.
Guernica fifth state 1937 (121)
By the fifth state Picasso had moved the head of his fallen warrior over to
coincide with the composition arranged by (120B). The horse changes its
position and relates more to the horse on the right of (113A) and in (114A).

The angular mother and child on the right of "Guernica" change into a
single figure in this state. Their form owes something to the Samson figure in
(113B). His foot raised in the air was probably adopted by Picasso to form the
head and neck of his woman. Other forms from this painting, turned into
abstract shapes, fit nicely into the composition of "Guernica." Some of
Rembrandt's use of contrast between light and dark areas is also present.
In concluding this tour of "Guernica's" sources, return to (103C) and
(103D), The lighted forms in (103C) had an impact on the shape of the woman
holding the lantern and the thrust of the gesture seems to come from (103D).
The head (122) of the fallen warrior assumes its final drawing and position
from a figure in the "Apocalypse of St. Sever, Commentary of Beatus" (122A).
Perhaps the dove in this work influenced the inclusion of a dove in this final
state. I believe the twisted postures of the men and animals must also have been
very attractive to Picasso.
The following list provides points of comparison between Picasso'
"Guernica-Composition Study" (Arnheim 15) of May 9, 1937 (113) and "Venus
Wounded by Diomedes" by Ingres (111A).
Picasso's will be listed on the left.

"Guernica-Composition Study" "Venus Wounded by Diomedes"

Long arms on the left =
horses' legs on the left.
Head of the bull =
heads of far horses.
Dark area under the bull's mouth =
dark plumes on the helmet of Diomedes
The hand of the woman holding a candle =

cloud shapes above the head of Venus.

The face of the woman holding a candle =
the face and neck of the woman in the chariot.The head of the woman holding
the child on the right =
the shape formed under the left hand of Venus.
The rear end of the bull =
the rear end of the horses.
A triangle under the elbow of the woman holding a candle =
a triangle made by the wand and right hand of the womin the chariot.
Vertical shapes under the above triangle =
the vertical lines of the woman's dress in the chariot.
The arm on the right, rising at 45 =
the right thigh of Venus.
The vertical right arm of the woman holding a baby =
the left leg and foot of Venus.
The rear of the horse =
the cloud forms at the chariot's wheel and around and behind
the left leg of Venus.
The chariot wheel =
the shield.
The chest of the bull =
the chest of Diomedes.
The dark v shape under the bull =
the dark v under the left thigh of Diomedes formed by a spear handle.
The head of the fallen figure = cloud forms in the lower left.
The hand on top of the neck =
the left foot of Diomedes.
Head on the ground under the bull =
the head of the fallen warrior.

The back of the horse =

part of the spoke of the wheel.
The shoulder of the horse =
the contour of the shield.
The head of the horse =
a cloud shape between the snake on the shield and the left edge of the wheel.
The right front leg of the horse =
a horizontal cloud form covering the shield.
The right front leg of the horse =
the right arm of the fallen warrior.
The dark belly of the horse =
the dark underside of the cloud.

The mane of the horse =

the dark shading on the front of the chariot.
The flames on the right =
the wings or flowing garments on the right.
EXAMPLE FROM 1938
"Two Nudes on the Beach" 1938 (123)
Picasso's "Two Nudes on the Beach" (123) was a parody combining
Rembrandt's "Bathsheba" (123A) and Delacroix's "Women of Algiers" (123B). Of
particular interest is the cloth in (123A) which has the form of the figure
bending over. The right foot of this nude can be found in the area of the sleeve
of the woman attending Bathsheba. The left hand was imagined in the shapes
behind Bathsheba's left heel. Many other examples exist in both works which
demonstrate Picasso's ability to fantasize.
EXAMPLE FROM 1939

"Night Fishing at Antibes" 1939 (124)

Barr described Picasso's "Night Fishing at Antibes" (124) as the largest and
possibly the most important canvas painted by Picasso during the decade
following the "Guernica" mural of 1937. Picasso painted this large work in
Antibes, France. Historically. this was just prior to the German invasion of
Poland. One might present the notion that Picasso's fishermen, poised to spear
the fish under the glare of the acetylene lamps, might represent the evil that was
to occur leading to World War II. However the ladies eating ice cream lend a
holiday air to the scene. The women (Andre Breton's wife and Dora Maar)
watch from the quay. One holds a bicycle. The sense of the historical moment
should not be dismissed considering other works of the period in which Picasso
presented a fantasy world, his personal arcadia (Barr 151).
Timothy Hilton in his book on Picasso reported on an aspect of this work
which created some speculation that it resembled a painting in the Louvre by
the seventeenth century Dutch artist Nicolas Maes, the "Bathers." (124A) Hilton
said "It is very likely that Picasso had a memory of this picture, but its position as a
really active ingredient of "Night Fishing" is hardly proven. One might, and with more
relevance, note the stooping figure's resemblance to the bathing woman in Manet's
"Dejeuner sur l'herbe," a motif which itself derives from one of Raphael's fishermen"
(Hilton 252).
I have found definite correlations between Picasso's "Night Fishing at
Antibes" (124) and a fifteenth century Flemish painting of the Martyrdom of St.
Hippolytus" (101E). This is the most complex revision of a work by Picasso,
since he has not only based his composition on the work, but he has rearranged
and altered the shapes to suit his purpose. Moreover, a study of the following
points should support my contention that Picasso developed (124) aside from,
or in concert with, the other works mentioned by Hilton. Sources from (101E)
are listed on the left.

"The Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus" "Night Fishing at Antibes

The figure group on the upper left =

the angular pile of
violet triangular forms which look
like the rooftops of buildings or a rocky shoreline.
The horse's head and mane on the left =
the dark shapes on the left directly under the above.
The hip and left leg of the man on horseback on the left =
the shapes under the above.
The foliage in the bottom left corner =
the octopus.
The light area under the front hooves of the horse =
the light fish on the left.
The triangular junctions of the land and water in the lower left =
the same in the lower left side.
The line from the horse's neck down diagonally to the front hoof =
the diagonal line of the spear on the left.
The light area at the left of the middle panel of the triptych =
the light in the upper left.
The sweeping curve from the hind quarters of the horse on the left
to the center of the middle panel, then upward to the horse on the
upper right of the middle panel =
the curve where the water and the land meet.
The horse's front legs on the left =
two diagonal shapes
which are lighter than the dark shape that
contains them.
The shapes of the riders on horse-back in upper left of the center panel =
the area to the left of the spiral light.

A horse whip =

a dark spiral in the light.

The horizon line moving across all three panels =

a line repeated onethird down from the top
of the picture
appearing in places
from left to right.
The clouds in the center panel =
the green loops
suggesting clouds next
to the light.
The light sky =
the main light.

The distant landscape under the horizon line in the center panel =
the head of the central figure with a spear.
The vertical trees near the left foot of St. Hippolytus =
the shaft of the fisherman's spear.
The dark leaves by the right footof St. Hippolytus=
the spear points.
A light rhomboid shape near the right foot of St. Hippolytus =
the fish in the front.
The left foot of St. Hippolytus =
the left hand of the fisherman holding a spear.
The horse's legs in the middle distance =
vertical lines on the shirt of the above.
the pants of the fisherman.
Light shapes and patterns in the clothes on the figure on the left of the central
panel =
the back of the crouching fisherman.
The area near the right hand of St. Hippolytus =

the face of the crouching fisherman.

Thus, "The Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus" throws much light on the
submarine theme of "Night Fishing at Antibes."
Hilton commented on the significance of this work "Night Fishing" is a
pretty big picture, nearly seven feet high and eleven feet across. More or less tripartite,
as was "Guernica," it has the same tendency to subdivide into large triangular areas,
but these gores are a great deal more flexible-fluid-than in the previous picture: and it is
in that fluidity, considered literally, as well as metaphorically that we find a significant
thing about the painting, its location within a discernible type of modern art which had
importance in Paris and, later in New York: a peculiar development of painting with
submarine connotations. This is not an eccentric observation: There was such a trend
with firm ichnographical and formal reasons for the theme; that is, the theme imposed
formal changes, or marked with formal changes. Underwater art comes from Miro, from
Leger, perhaps Kandinsky, and from Klee (whom Picasso had been to visit in the autumn
of the previous year). It gave the opportunity for associated but not linked forms-as they
would have tended to be locked around an armature in Cubism-and allowed these forms
to be freely and lyrically placed in a flat surface that still allowed some vague recession
(Hilton 250).Sam Hunter's remarks are relevant. He said The constant metamorphosis of
forms gives the impression that in this topsy-turvy pictorial world figures, sky and
water may be reversed and change places at any moment. The landscape treatment
suggests the Byzantine and early Renaissance convention of the "paysage moralise," the
shrunken moral landscape of faceted rocks through which saints and sinners gingerly
walked, as on a bed of cut glass, in their search for heavenly consolation. The
labyrinthine confusion of the locale and the facility with which human figures assume
the shape of monstrous grotesques also suggests the more modern religious fables of
Franz Kafka. Picasso's extreme macabre humor has definite Kafkan overtones of
desperate gaiety; it makes a mockery of normal vision, and fumbles man's identity.
There is no overt "religious" content in this humor or in atavistic and grotesque
deformations of the human form. The violence of our era has, metaphorically, split the
human image asunder. Picasso faithfully registers this fact, shows no signs of patching
up the damage, at least in his lifetime, and makes this situation an occasion for a
Dionysiac revel in this handsome nocturne (Hunter 151-152).
Hilton also commented on Picasso's references to previous art It is a

truism that no great modern art has been made without as much absorption of the old
masters. In the post-war years, just when the next great wave of major painting was
coming to terms with new possibilities by a rejection of Picasso and what he had done,
he blind to contemporary art, painted ludicrous Picassian versions of Manet, Courbet,
El Greco, Delacroix, Velazquez (Hilton 254).
EXAMPLES FROM 1944
"Bacchanale" 1944 (125)
An example is the version Picasso did of Poussin's "Triumph of Pan" in
1944. Note how Picasso's abstracted shapes in his "Bacchanale" (125) are more
fluid than the shapes in (125A).
"Charnel House" 1944-45, (126)
Picasso built his "Charnel House" (126) on the foundation of Delacroix's
"Death of Sardanapalus" (126A). Sardanapalus, facing defeat at the hands of his
enemy, destroys his harem and his possessions along with himself rather than
be conquered. "Charnel House" was Picasso's comment at the end of World War
II. Robert Rosenblum pointed out an affinity between "The Charnel House" and
Goya's "Ravages of War" from the "Disasters of War" (126B). Note the
juxtaposition of dead figures with the still life objects suggested by linear shapes
which are also present in he top of (126A).
The work described in this section represent the most ambitious
juxtapositioning of styles and shapes of Picasso's career. The Spanish Civil War
and World War II demanded serious work from Picasso. He met the challenge.
After this time he apparently chose to isolate himself and became content to
parody art.

Works cited.
Barr, Alfred H. Picasso: 50 Years of His Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1946 219. Print.Barr Alfred H, Masters of Modern Art, quoted by Sam Hunter in
Modern French Painting New York, Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1956 151. Print.
Hilton, Timothy Picasso, New York: Praeger, 1975 252. Print.
Hilton, Timothy Picasso, New York: Praeger, 1975 250. Print.
Hunter, Sam Modern French Painting New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 1956
151-152. Print.
Hilton, Timothy Picasso, New York: Praeger, 1975 254. Print.

CHAPTER VII
Post War Parodies - 1946-1972
After the end of World War II, Picasso enjoyed an open relationship with
the masters of art. His many obvious variations after Velazquez's "The Maids of
Honor" have been the subject of much discourse.
EXAMPLE FROM 1949
"David and Bathsheba," a lithograph from 1949 (127)
An example of a variation after Lucas Cranach is "David and Bathsheba," a
lithograph (127) in which Picasso naturally reversed Cranach's images in (127A).
EXAMPLES FROM 1950
Demoiselles des bords de la Seine" 1950 (128)
Courbet, who for a long time had been one of Picasso's favorite resources,
came out in the open in Picasso's composition based on Courbet's "Girls on the
Banks of the Seine" (128A) from which Picasso freely manipulated shapes to
make his "Demoiselles des bords de la Seine" (128). Penrose related in his
biography of Picasso the following His continual interest in the work of others
had tempted him on several occasions in the past to take as his theme a painting that he
admired, such as Poussin's "Bacchanale," and reinterpret it according to the feelings it
provoked in him. At this time two great paintings, the "Demoiselles de la Seine" by
Courbet and El Greco's "Self-Portrait," had attracted his attention, and he painted two
large canvases, rearranging them in his own manner. In both cases it is possible to trace
in detail the original work, n. A careful comparison between Picasso's versions and the
works of his predecessors is the best possible guide to the revolution he has brought
about in painting and to its significance (Penrose 343).
"Self-Portrait of El Greco" copy 1950 (129)
In describing Picasso's copy of the "Self-Portrait of El Greco" 1950, (129)

after (129A) Penrose said His admiration for the master of Toledo and his interest in
the fact that it is a self- portrait have not restrained him from making fundamental
changes, although at the same time he has kept faithfully to the spirit of the work. He
has treated his subject, the original painting, as formerly he treated a guitar, analyzing
it and making a statement of its essential qualities without failing to take every detail
into account. The head of El Greco, surrounded by a white ruff, is greatly enlarged, and
the features, instead of presenting an almost photographic likeness, are formed, rather
than deformed, in a way which changes their static appearance into one of movement. El
Greco's right hand, with little finger raised, holding the brush, is spread out nervously
like a flower and El Greco's small rectangular palette, held in his left hand, is
unchanged in shape, but it becomes unmistakable the less tidy palette of Picasso. El
Greco's portrait with its Renaissance conception of reality prepared the ground for
photography. Picasso's version some three hundred and fifty years later opens our eyes
to a new vision in painting, and a new attitude towards reality (Penrose 343).
EXAMPLE FROM 1954
"Femmes d'Alger" 1954 (130)
Ostensibly, a copy of Delacroix's "Femmes d'Alger," Picasso's delight was in
developing Delacroix's "Death of Sardanapalus" (126A) to make his "Femmes
d'Alger" (130).
EXAMPLE FROM 1957
"The Maids of Honor" after Velazquez 1957 (131)
In the summer of 1957, Picasso began a series of works which had as their
starting point a huge black and white photograph of Velazquez's "The Maids of
Honor" (131A). Five months later he had produced fifty-eight painted
variations. (131) is but one example.
EXAMPLE FROM 1958
"Buste de Femme d'Apres Cranach" 1958 (132)

"Buste de Femme d'Apres Cranach" (132) is a color linoleum print which

Picasso cut while looking at a postcard reproduction of Cranach's "Portrait of a
Lady" (132A).
EXAMPLE FROM 1961

"Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe," 1961 (133)

Picasso's "Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe," (133) claims Manet as its source (28C);
however, Louis LeNain's "Peasant Family" (133B) contains the contours of
Picasso's composition.
EXAMPLE FROM 1962
"Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe after Manet" 1962 (134)
Furthermore, he combined the subject of (28C) with LeNain's "Peasants at "
(134).
Picasso had done a series of paintings after Manet's "Le Dejeuner sur
l'Herbe" (28C) as Penrose reported Picasso had once more taken a painting he
admired and used it as the starting point of successive variations. This time he had
picked the "Dejeuner sur l'Herbe" of Manet, a subject which could easily have taken
place in the sunlight and shade of the water meadows of Vauvenarques. The
composition of this landscape with figures had already been borrowed by Manet from
Giorgione's painting in the Louvre, "LaFete Champetre." But as usual the scene became
increasingly transformed by Picasso's imagination, and except for the dominant greens,
the allusions to the original painting gave way to playful inventions. Manet's
characters lived a new life improvised for them by Picasso (Penrose 387).
"Family Portrait," a litho crayon drawing 1962 (135)
"Family Portrait," a print 1962 (136)
At this time Picasso must have seem "Dr. Baines and Family" (135A), a
photograph by D. O. Hill and Robert Adamson, because the persons in the

photograph are the same family represented in Picasso's "Family Portrait," a

litho crayon drawing of 1962 (135) and a print (136) dated June 21, 1962.

EXAMPLE FROM 1963

The Painter and His Model 1963 (137)
The Painter and His Model (137) depicts the painter seen by Picasso in the
negative space to the left of the face and chest of the blacksmith from LeNain's
"A Smith at His Forge" (137A). The line of the underside of the painter's arm is
the line of the top of the anvil. The model's head is negative light space in the
upper right of (137A). The painter's chair seat is the base of the anvil. His right
shoe is the shadow on the base supporting the anvil and its long shadow. A
shape behind the smith's left hand looked like a painter's palette to Picasso. The
woman in the background of (137A) contains the lines of the easel.
EXAMPLES FROM 1964
"Artist at Work" an aquatint and drypoint 1964 (138)
"Artist at Work" (138) was created from a painting by Leon Benouville; his
"Odalisque" of 1844 (136A). Note the design on the pillow under the right arm
which Picasso used for a mask.
"The Artist and His Model" an aquatint and drypoint of November 7, 1964
(139)
"The Artist and His Model" (139), an aquatint and drypoint was adapted
from "The Sultana" by Carl Van Loo (139A). The square jaw of the painter came
from the corner of the window in (139A).
"The Artist and His Model" of November 11, 1964 (140)
Another variation of "The Artist and His Model" (140) was also painted
from (139A).

EXAMPLES FROM 1965

"In the Studio" of March 14, 1965 (141)
For his "In the Studio" (141) Picasso combined Leon Benouville's
"Odalisque" (138A) and John Frederich Lewis's "The Harem" (149A).
EXAMPLES FROM 1967
"Boy-Melon- Flute" 1967 (142)
In 1932, Picasso had done a series of drawings after Grunewald's "Isenheim
Altarpiece-Crucifixion" (142A). In 1967, Picasso returned to (142A) for his
crayon drawing "Boy-Melon- Flute" (142).
The year 1967 marked the centenary of the death of Ingres and Picasso's
friend Robert Rosenblum's handsome monograph honoring Ingres was
published that year by Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated. Two of Picasso's works
were included, so it is very likely that he received a copy since he had a great
respect for Ingres and knew the author. I believe that Picasso had seen the
monograph prior to publication- perhaps as early as 1964. Benouville's
"Odalisque" (136A) was one of the works included in the monograph. Picasso
appears to have sequentially done variations on the numerous reproductions in
the monograph on Ingres.
"Drawing" 1967 (143)
"Drawing" (143) is one example. Picasso made this drawing from "The
Sultana" (139A) by Carl Van Loo. He changed the size of anatomical parts to
coincide with the shapes of (139A). A comparison follows: Van Loo's work will
be described on the left.
"The Sultana"
In the drapery above the head of the Sultana =

"Drawing"

Picasso saw the woman's profile.

The hat and hair of the Sultana =
the thumb and fingers holding the hair.
Light drapery and the Sultana's face =
the woman's breasts.
The head of the servant girl =
the mirror.
The coat of the servant girl =
the large feet of the woman.
The pillow under the Sultana's left arm =
the bottom of Picasso's woman.
The left knee of the Sultana =
the area of the left knee.
The corner of the table in the foreground =
the rectangle under the woman.
"Drawing" 1967, (144)
Picasso did many drawings from "Raphael and Fornarina" by Ingres
(144A). Another similar source was Paolo and Francesca by Alexandre
Cabanel (158A). This "Drawing" (144) is an example.
"Circus Scene" 1967, (145)
"Drawing" (144) and "Circus Scene" (145) were also drawn from (139A) The
two horse's heads appear in the first folds of the drapery where a dark triangle
meets a five-sided shape of a lighter value. This angular shape is on the nose of
the white-faced horse. The tail of this horse is on the upper right corner of
(139A).
"Drawing" 1967, (146)

In (146), another drawing done from (139A) in 1967, the servant girl is
replaced by a lion.
EXAMPLES FROM 1968
"Deux Danseuses et Oriental I" 1968, (147)
This is one of many examples of Picasso working from paintings of
harems and sultans. See John Frederick Lewis's "Harem" (147A) The sultan
resembles "European Portrait of Shah Ismail" (148A) a 15th Century portrait by
an unknown artist. Another example is the Sultan in (148B).
"Kid Slipping into a Harem Reserved for Women" etching 1968 (148)
Another harem scene "Kid Slipping into a Harem Reserved for Women"
(148) has a young child similar to the babies in "The Tepidarium" of the School
of Fontainbleau (152A).
Harem scenes and a sultan in this drawing (149) relate to the earlier scenes
of 1967.
Woman, Bird and Oriental 1968 (149)
Woman, Bird and Oriental (149) follows the source John Frederick
Lewis's "Harem" (147A).
"Drawing" 1968 (150)
This Lewis painting was mixed with Gerome's Womens' Bath at Brusa
(152B) which was also reproduced in the Ingres book, for the models of Picasso's
"Drawing" (150).
"Drawing" 1968 (151)
"Drawing" 1968 (152)

To the above mentioned sources Picasso added Ingres's "Turkish Bath"

(17A) and Gerome's "Women's Bath at Brusia" (152B) printed on the same page
as "Tepidarium" (152A) in the Ingres book to do both "Drawing" (151) and
"Drawing" (152). Other harem sources are "In the Harem" (152C) and Le
Harem" (152D). Another Sultan may be seen in (158A).
"Drawing" 1968 (153)
Picasso turned back to (149A) to combine it with (152B) to make another
"Drawing" (153) in 1968.
Etching March 16-22, 1968 (154)
He did an etching (154) from a reproduction in this same monograph on
Ingres on March 22, 1968. The source for the arrangement was found in
Friedrich Overbeck's "Triumph of Religion in the Arts" (154A).
Etching May 13, 1968 (155)
Continuing to mine the same monograph, Picasso chose Ingres's "King
Philip V of Spain investing the Marshall of Berwick with the Golden Fleece after
the Battle of Almanza 1818" (155A) to parody turning King Philip into a
photographer in his "Etching" (155) of May 13, 1968. The ladies were found in
the flags and figures on the right of (155A).
"Aquatint" of May 15, 1968 (156)
Again, Picasso amused himself by selecting "Jesus Among the Doctors" by
Ingres (156A) to represent himself in his "Aquatint" of May 15, 1968 (156).
"Aquatint" of May 28, 1968 (157)
Picasso looked at Ingres's (155A) on May 28, 1968 along with Cranach's
David and Bathsheba (127A) and did "Suite 347 L123 Old man thinking of his
life: gallant youth an aquatint (157).

"Etching" of August 29, 1968 (158)

"Etching" of August 29, 1968 (158) was lined from Alexandre Cabanel's
"Paolo and Francesca" (158A) also reproduced in the book on Ingres.
"Etching" 1968 (159)
"Rembrandt Giving Instruction in His Studio" Rembrandt School parody
1968 (160)
As late as 1968, Picasso still liked to parody "Rembrandt Giving Instruction
in His Studio" Rembrandt School (160A). Rembrandt looks on from the left
while the artist works in Picasso's (159) and (160).
"The Embrace" of November 19, 1969 (161)
One of the works Picasso responded to in creating his series of "The
Embrace" was a "Paolo and Francesca" (161A) by William Dyce reproduced in
Rosenblum's book on Ingres. Picasso's "The Embrace" (161) of November 19,
1969 borrowed from Dyce's figures and Cranach's Ill Matched Couple (161B).
"Etching-Aquatint, Scraper" of February 3-March 5, 6, 1970 (162)
Picasso's "Etching-Aquatint, Scraper" of February 3-March 5, 6, 1970 (162)
joined the images of Ingres's "The Apotheosis of Homer" (162A) reproduced in
the Ingres book along with "Massacre of the Innocents" by Matteo di Giovanni
(162B) and Rembrandt's "Christ Presented to the People (162C)."
EXAMPLE FROM 1972
"Self-Portrait" of June 30, 1972 (163)
One of Picasso's last works, a "Self-Portrait" of June 30, 1972 (163), looks
more like a photograph of a man on the cover of the newspaper which reported
the story of the bombing of Guernica (163A) than it looks like a photograph of
Picasso (163B), suggesting to me that Picasso may have perceived his
appointment with death as a personal Guernica. On April 8, 1973 Picasso died.

Works cited.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken,
1962 343. Print.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken,
1962 343. Print.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken,
1962 387. Print.

CHAPTER VIII
Conclusion
Over one hundred and fifty examples of Picasso's work which refer to the
art of the masters have been presented in this study illustrating that Picasso
maintained a relationship with art history throughout his production as an
artist. His raids on art history served him in many ways. I offer the following as
possible explanations for this practice.
Picasso may have substituted the masters for father figures. He was so
accomplished an artist that by the time he was fourteen his father, who was also
his art teacher, turned over his brushes and palette to his son and swore never to
paint again. What an impression this must have made on the young artist!
Picasso then turned to the masters for his instruction, making them his new role
models.
Once, while discussing the influence of El Greco and Cezanne in his work,
Picasso explained Naturally! Every painter must have a father and a mother
(Picasso qtd. in Duncan 521).
In describing Picasso's "Las Meninas" of 1957 after Velazquez, John Berger
suggested that the distortions of Picasso's copy seemonly to rob Velazquez: to
honor him perhaps at the same time robbing him. Even- and again like a child- thus to
ask for his protection. In his own painting Velazquez is so effortlessly himself, and in
Picasso's painting he is so overwhelmingly large, that he might be a father. It may be
that as an old man Picasso here returns as a prodigal to give back the palette and
brushes he hadacquired too easily at the age of fourteen (Berger 185).
There is, moreover, a long tradition of artists receiving their instruction
from the masters by copying the masters' works. Picasso's early training
certainly included many hours of studying the works of the masters in his
native Spain and he did the same on his numerous visits to Paris before he
finally moved there in 1904. Many of the works Picasso studied were in the
Prado Museum and the Louvre Museum. Penrose stated that Picasso did not let
his work exclude visits to the museums, which were one of his chief amusements during

these early days in Paris. By this time he knew his way round most of them. He spent
long hours with the Impressionist paintings in the Luxembourg and was often seen in
the Louvre, where he was much intrigued by the Egyptian and Phoenician art styles,
which in those days were generally considered barbaric. The gothic sculpture of the
Musee de Cluny called for careful scrutiny and he was aware in a more distant way of
the charm of Japanese prints. They had already been in vogue for some years and
therefore interested him less. It gave him greater satisfaction to discover things not yet
noticed by others (Penrose 76).
Penrose also said The summer and autumn of 1901 had been a period of fruitful
exploration and experiments in the adaptation of borrowed techniques. He had learned
much by copying indirectly and by transposing the work of masters he admired
(Penrose 76).
Picasso's study of the masters extended well beyond his formative years;
indeed, he continued this practice throughout his career, combining an
increasing number of sources into compositions which became more and more
complex. From the early "La Vie" (10), "Family of Saltimbanques" (21), the
"Demoiselles" (40) culminating in "Guernica" (88), the number of influential
sources increase. "Guernica" demonstrates Picasso's most ambitious attempt to
combine the similar content of numerous masterworks into one powerful
statement on suffering and war using the traditional "massacre of the innocents"
theme.
Hilton commented on this extended period of study from the masters by
Picasso He saw as much painting as he could, in the Louvre, in dealers' galleries, in
other artists' studios. He painted a great deal himself, and began that process, crucial in all
young artists, of relating his own work to the avant-garde of the day. It is important to
recognize that this period of adjustment, for Picasso, was protracted (Hilton 11).
Francoise Gilot told of Picasso visiting the Louvre Museum during the
1940's and having his work hung next to Zurbaran's "St. Bonaventure on His
Bier" (1A), Delacroix's "Death of Sardanapalus" (92A), "The Massacre of Chios"
(10F) and "Women of Algiers" (89B). He visited the Louvre monthly to study
"Women of Algiers" and, in addition, he studied Courbet's "The Studio" (34A)
and The Burial at Ornans" (20C). When asked what he thought of Delacroix

Picasso had said: "That bastard, he's really good." At that time Picasso was
sixty-five years old. What made Picasso unique was that he never outgrew his
need to borrow from the masters. After 1945 this occurred regularly. During
World War II, Francoise Gilot described two small gouaches Picasso painted
during the occupation of Paris.They were painted from a reproduction of a
bacchanalian scene by Poussin, "The Triumph of Pan" (91A). He told Francoise
Gilot he planned to paint his own version of Delacroix's "Women of Algiers."
This was in 1946 and demonstrated that Picasso still had that need to identify
with and challenge the accepted masters of his profession. He had to see how he
measured up to their reputations. He appeared to have a need to compare
himself and his work with them on their "own grounds" so to speak. His early
copies proved he was equal to the old masters. As an "old master" himself he
seemed content to caricature their work much like a child defacing
photographic reproductions in magazines by drawing over the faces. The image
was still there, but it was definitely changed after Picasso worked it over. His
imposed forms do not necessarily combine with the content of the masters'
work. To Picasso this may have been more of an act of magic whereby he
"devoured" the work of the masters and acquired their creative "power." (Picasso
qtd. in Gilot 192).
Picasso's art dealer Kahnweiler commented Picasso took me up to the attic
once again with his nephew Fin to look at the pictures after Delacroix's "Femmes
d'Alger," on which he was working. Picasso said: "I wonder what Delacroix would say
if he saw these pictures." I replied that I thought he would understand. Picasso: "Yes, I
think so. I would say to him: "You had Rubens in mind, and painted a Delacroix. I
paint them with you in mind, and make something different again (Kahnweiler 12).
Picasso seemed to express some concern about this practice yet dismissed it
as one common to artists and felt justified by his results.
He demonstrated this identification with the masters early in his career.
Hilton commented on an early self-portrait (4) It might be retitled "Portrait of the
Artist as Van Gogh," for the derivation is so frank as to amount to some sort of
identification. Like the late tragic portraits of Van Gogh that Picasso would have seen at
Vollard's, the painting is basically frontal but turned slightly towards the left, and
employs exactly the same powerful and compact single outline against a very shallow

background... (Hilton 22).

Hilton pointed out that in the painting Picasso made himself look older and
as if he had suffered much more. He related this activity by Picasso to that of
artists who circulated self-portraits or mutual portraits among Van Gogh's and
Gauguin's friends at the end of the 1880's inscribed "a son copain."
Hilton suggested that The young Picasso, tactfully but also proudly,
announces a half-reverential camaraderie with the artists who had preceded him, who
were close to him though not personally known. He never painted Braque, or any other
living artists, with serious intent (Hilton 22).
Francois Gilot related a statement which Picasso made as he was showing
her prints from his Vollard Suite of the 1930's You see this truculent character
here, with the curly hair and moustache? That's Rembrandt, or maybe it's Balzac, I'm
not sure. It's a compromise, I suppose. It doesn't really matter. They're only two of the
people who haunt me. Every human being is a whole colony you know (Picasso qtd.
in Gilot 45) .
Picasso was also quoted by Gilot as saying Every painter takes himself for
Rembrandt...Everybody has the same delusions (Picasso qtd. in Gilot 45).
Picasso's delusions may have been jolted by the critical reviews of his first
exhibition in Paris in 1901, accounting for his attempting to conceal the sources
for his work after that exhibition. Even though this exhibit was a success in
terms of sales, the twenty year old artist was criticized for being an imitator of
Steinlen, Lautrec and Van Gogh. Even Gustave Coquiot, a Picasso supporter and
organizer of that first exhibition admitted Arriving in Paris very young, Picasso
entered upon his Steinlen period. He painted the street, gardens, houses, the boys and
the women of the town. He painted them very quickly; up to as many as ten paintings
per day. Soon there were so many that his first exhibition was organized, at Vollard's in
June, 1901...He was getting tired of this plagiarism; and from Steinlen he went on to
Lautrec... (Coquiot qtd. in Daix 36).
This negative criticism did not prevent Picasso from continuing to use the

work of past masters. He only did so more covertly. Perhaps reacting to this
early criticism, he made his borrowing after this time less obvious until his
masterful organization of past art orchestrated "Guernica." He said in 1935 I
should like to manage things so that one would never see how my picture was
made (Picasso qtd. in Leymarie 185).
After the successful reception of "Guernica" Picasso overtly reconstructed
works by famous artists and now was praised for these parodies. He must have
savored this triumph over his early critics. The copies from Cranach, Courbet,
Delacroix, El Greco, Poussin and Velazquez of the last half of Picasso's
production are totally obvious compared with works he did after 1901 and
before the "Guernica" mural of 1937. He craved success and achieved that goal
rapidly by his raids on art history. With the concealed help of the masters he
conquered the Parisian art scene, outdid his rival Matisse and became the most
famous and wealthy artist of this century.
Edouard Manet, the first artist working in the modernist manner in the last
quarter of the nineteenth century, had painted his versions of the work of Titian
and Raphael. Following Manet's example, Picasso deliberately chose to make
art history his reference. Like Manet before him, he worked from the
compositions of the masters, thereby freeing himself from the bondage of
creating from a perceived reality. At the same time he gained from the masterful
formal structures which were concealed in the abstract. In other words, he
avoided merely copying the appearance of the things he saw about him. His
method was to look at the art of the past until he found something he wished to
dissect as Cubism had broken up and recombined the perception of subject
matter to present its new vision. Cubism had claimed for the artist a new reality.
That reality was the process by which nature is transformed into art rather than
the artist seeking the elusive illusion of representing perceived reality.
Penrose commented on this During the years when Picasso was discovering
cubism his faculties were fully occupied: he was completely dedicated to his new-found
invention, and allowed himself no deviations. At the same time he was conscious of
other modes of vision. His admiration for the work of great masters such as Ingres, and
his careful study of their paintings in the Louvre during his early years in Paris, may at

first sight appear incongruous with his cubist discoveries. But even during the most
hermetic period of cubism he shared with all great artists a desire to keep in touch with
reality, and knew that there has been more than one way of doing so (Penrose 191).
One of the ways Picasso did this was by searching through the art of the
masters to find examples relating to his current formal and thematic interests.
He said "When I paint my object is to show what I have found and not what I am
looking for" (Picasso qtd. Barr 270).
He would paraphrase or combine, seeming to delight in finding
associations within numerous works which he could reconstitute, freely mixing
the work of different periods of art history. He rejected non-objective art,
choosing to have his work refer to his experience of the he technology of the
twentieth century assisted him in his travels through art history. He had at his
command reproductions, photographs, projection slides to supplement original
art and artifacts.
Parmelin description in describing Picasso's studio in the 1960's
mentioned "Stacks of projectors and easels..." (Parmelin 87).
Stacks of slide projectors suggest a practice of projecting numerous images
and that Picasso's comparison and evaluation of his work with the art of the
masters was enhanced by his study of projected slides of their work. Parmelin
gave this amazing account of projection in the winter of 1963-64 At Mougins,
winter out of doors has its famous sun, but the nights in the studio are more
magnificent still, warm, intimate, and deep.
I have a memory, extraordinarily violent and almost magical in its clarity, of an
evening that winter at Notre-Dame de Vie, before Christmas. At the end of the room
Picasso generally uses when he is not working, there is a studio which he had built on a
terrace. The wall facing the vast countryside (with its motorway at the foot of the hill
and its sea studded with the shining triangles of warships) is glass for half its height.
The whole of the night lives in this window with its strings of lights, its sparks flashing
from earth and sky, the one alive with the red and white meteor-streaks of cars, and the
other fixed and motionless, with no shooting stars. These vastnesses of the night, so

precious to the eye, so inviting to the dreams of the man behind the glass, are both
outside and inside at the same time.
Around us was the fairly calm disorder of the studio, for at that time Picasso was
only just beginning to use it.
The farthest wall was uncluttered, vast and white. This wall had a part to play.
It all began late in the evening when Picasso came out of his studio at the far end
and walked towards us. The lights went out. Jacqueline raised a finger, and a jet of light
sprang forth. And suddenly there appeared, enormous, ten times larger than the real
canvas and covering the whole wall, in colours, a bare-legged warrior, his foot planted
on a child, beside a kneeling woman, clinging to him, her head thrown back, screaming;
it was Poussin's "Massacre of the Innocents."
All around, right to the farthest corners of the wall, the massacre went on. There
was no house left, no studio, nobody. Only those huge people radiating colour and light,
alone in the night, on a level with the house, and with an extraordinary life of their own.
But the dark landscape clung to the glass, making it into a mirror. Another
"Massacre of the Innocents" appeared before our eyes, right opposite the first.
"It's almost better than the other" said Picasso, "because it's less sharp, and the
colours are truer."
"Floating as it did outside the wall, in the air, covering, by the usual optical
illusion, the whole sky. with its stars which took their place in the canvas, with the
whole of the hill of Mougins, and a few eyes that were headlights gliding among the
soldiers as they raised their sabres, the "Massacre of the Innocents" on the glass wall
,had a feeling of singular immensity.
In the studio where we sat invisible, where all was dark, thoughts of all kinds
grew in profusion, and from time to time the miracle of the projector and the size of that
wall has transformed that studio into an enchanted art gallery where all the galleries in
the world showed us the many-times-magnified essence of their masterpieces. "La ronde
de nuit" here appears life-size. A head by Rembrandt, ten feet high, can be contemplated
for hours, whether true or false, with all sorts of details suddenly becoming clear as

through a microscope. The head of Van Gogh's self-portrait stretches from floor to
ceiling. And even though it is the Van Gogh pictures which suffer most from
reproduction, Picasso says that all the same, on the wall as everywhere else, it is he who
is the greatest of all (Parmelin 49).
Slide projection gave Picasso the opportunity of using more than one
projector at a time with multiple images. He could have used these multiple
projections to compare his work with that of others; to notice relationships
between the works and even to selectively enlarge sections, alter perception by
projecting the slides out of focus, reversing the slides, even overlapping two or
more slides in the same space frame. It is not inconceivable to imagine Picasso
working with the aid of projected slides in this manner. Indeed, it would be very
natural for him. He had the many projectors, slides, the great white wall, the
darkness of the night when he preferred to work, and the need throughout his
career, as we have seen, to combine and alter images.
Another way Picasso used photography was to work from photographs
that he he took or to make copies of photographs and picture- postcards that he
obtained. Penrose reported A postcard of a young couple in Tyrolian national
costume was transformed into a large and splendid pencil drawing which is no slavish
copy, but rather a noble and inspired study, drawn with such vitality and freshness that
the original photo would look a travesty of reality beside it. There is similarly a wellknown drawing of Diaghilev and Selisbourg taken from a photograph for which they had
dressed themselves with the greatest care. In this case the photograph still exists. In
comparison with the direct simplicity of the drawing, in which all superfluous detail is
eliminated and only a pure unhesitating line remains to describe their features, the
photograph is a poor, insufficient likeness of the two men. Just as Picasso had delighted
in showing even as a child that he could rival the masters, here it gave him great
satisfaction to show that he could beat the camera (Penrose 217).
Blunt commented on Picasso's uniqueness Basically, however, Picasso is an
eclectic in the best and most traditional sense of the word. Like all the great artists of the
past - though with an avidity perhaps rare with them - he has studied every form of art
which came before his eyes and, with modern museums and art galleries, and twentiethcentury methods of photography and book production, the quantity and variety of art
accessible to him are of a quite different order from what would have been known to an

artist in, say, the sixteenth century, who would have known the painting of his native
city, who could have known a small number of works of art through copies or
engravings. With the "Musee Imaginaire" of today Picasso has, almost all his life, been
able to see every form of art known to man; but, if he has been presented with this huge
variety, he has always chosen what he needed with the most exact instinct and
judgment, finding precisely the material that he needed for what he was doing at that
particular moment and invariably moulding it to his own purposes. He has always
realized that it is only with an artist of feeble imagination that eclecticism is a danger; a
great artist can absorb and be nourished by what he takes from others and uses to his
own ends (Blunt 6).
Picasso offered an explanation for his combining images from traditional
art When I paint, I always try to give an image people are not expecting and beyond
that, one they reject. That's what interests me. It's in this sense that I mean I always try
to be subversive. That is, I give a man an image of himself whose elements are collected
from among the usual way of seeing things in traditional painting and then reassembled
in a fashion that is unexpected and disturbing enough to make it impossible for him
toescape the questions it raises (Picasso qtd. in Gilot 66).
A failure to recognize the scope of Picasso's dependence on the practice of
transforming the work of others has generated a myth about his creative powers
which would have us to believe that his inventions were totally original,
unprecedented and inexplicable. Gertrude Stein even promoted the idea that
Picasso had no help in his revolution in art but later she contradicted her
statement Picasso was the only one in painting who saw the twentieth century with
his eyes and saw its reality and consequently his struggle was terrifying, terrifying for
himself and for others, because he had nothing to help him, the past did not help him,
nor the present, he had to do it all alone...
Later she modified her statement by saying:
...he returned and became acquainted with Matisse through whom he came to know
African sculpture (Stein 22) .
As her statement demonstrates, Picasso was often presented as the solitary
genius creating an unprecedented art for the twentieth century. This was just

not the case. Picasso not only had the assistance of past art but he would also
borrow from his contemporaries as recalled by Penrose It has often been said, not
without malice, that Picasso steals anything from anyone if it intrigues him sufficiently.
There are those who claim that during his close collaboration with Braque he would
hurry home after a visit to his friend's studio to exploit ideas suggested by the work he
had just seen. These rumors spread to such a degree, says Cocteau (who is himself not
adverse from the habit of borrowing, especially from Picasso), that minor cubist painters
would hide their latest pet inventions when he paid them a visit from fear that he would
carry off some trivial idea on which they had staked their hopes of fame. It is not the
theft however that is important - the world of ideas should have no frontiers - it is what
is made of it afterwards. A worse practice which can lead to complete sterility is
indicated by Picasso when he says: "To copy others is necessary but to copy oneself is
pathetic" (Picasso qtd. in Penrose 191).
Furthermore, Picasso was compelled to make art but lacking subjects
(either through his choice of living in isolation or the practice of not working
from the model which naturally developed when Picasso and Braque were
creating their cubist works at the beginning of the twentieth century) he chose to
combine subjects gleaned from others' art or took his subject matter from works
he had previously painted. Picasso, having exiled himself, was close to letting
painting become a mere exercise or game in his isolation. John Berger
commented on this particular problem The horror of it all is that it is a life without
reality. Picasso is only happy when working. Yet he has nothing of his own to work on.
He takes up the themes of other painter's pictures. He decorates pots and plates that
other men make for him. He is reduced to playing like a child. He becomes again the
child prodigy (Berger 180).
Parmelin related that in 1964, Spitzer, a Berlin publisher, sent Picasso a
package of reproductions of one of Picasso's own paintings of an artist. Picasso
proceeded to make variations of it. Picasso said I could do thousands of them.
It's marvelou to work like this from a painter who's already there. Basically the
most terrible thing of all for a painter is a blank canvas (Picasso qtd. in
Parmelin 97).
Also, throughout Picasso's production there occured a transformation of

persons and objects, a metamorphosis, as if by magic into something else, often

disturbing or unexpected. In discussing one of his paintings Picasso said that he
was interested in making it more disturbing. This is connected to his fascination
with the magic of metamorphosis or the changes of form, shape, structure or
substance. It would have been quite natural for him to effect this transformation
by adapting the works of the masters overlaying his images upon the formal
elements of their compositions. In essence, taking one thing and turning it into
another or finding the suggestion of an image hidden in masterpieces like the
childhood game of finding faces suggested in the forms of clouds. An early
example from 1903 is a landscape drawing done in Barcelona Nude Lying with
Figures (164) in which Picasso creates imaginary faces and figures in the trees
and clouds and a nude in the foreground landforms. This approach recalls
Leonardo da Vinci's searching the cracks and patterns of his walls looking for
imaginary subjects to inspire him. Concerning metamorphosis and its relation to
his famous saddle and bicycle handlebars which Picasso joined to make a bull's
head Picasso said One day I take the saddle and the handle bars, I put them one on
top of the other, and I make a bull's head. All well and good. But what I should have
done straight after was to throw away the bull's head. Throw it into the gutter,
anywhere, but throw it away. Then a workman comes along. He picks it up. He thinks
that with this bull's head he could perhaps make a saddle and a set of bicycle handlebars
and he does it...that would have been magnificent. It is the gift of metamorphosis
(Picasso qtd. in Parmelin 76-77) .

(164)

Brassai quoted Picasso as saying in 1943 It seems strange to me that we ever

arrived at the idea of making statues from marble. I understand how you can see
something in the root of a tree, a crevice in a wall, a corroded bit of stone, or a
pebble...But marble? It stands there like a block, suggesting no form or image. It doesn't
inspire. How could Michelangelo have seen his "David" in a block of marble? If it
occurred to man to create his own images, it's because he discovered them all around
him, almost formed, already within his grasp. He saw them in a bone, in the irregular
surfaces of cavern walls, in a piece of wood... One form might suggest a woman, another
a bison, and still another the head of a demon (Picasso qtd. in Brassai 66-67).
This transformation was consistent with the 20th century Surrealist
movement in art. John Golding summarized this Breton pinpointed what was
perhaps most fundamental to Surrealist visual techniques when he wrote, quite simply,
that Surrealism had suppressed the world "like" a tomato is no longer "like" a child's
balloon. It has never been sufficiently stressed that the question of the interchangeability
of images had been posed, within the context of twentieth century art, by Synthetic
Cubism, and most markedly by that of Picasso (Breton qtd. in Golding 114).
Picasso's friend Sabartes gave the example of Picasso receiving an oval
cherimoya fruit from Spain which reminded Picasso of an owl Observing the
fruit before him, Picasso sees the exact position of the eyes and the bill; as he observes the
fruit from the side, the image which comes to his mind is confirmed. With his finger he
follows the curve of the fruit, which then suggests: "The little feet here and the bill
here." So strong is his conviction that he effortlessly remarks to whoever is with him:
"Even the feathers, you see?" And indeed, even the feathers; it is enough that he sees
them for us to see them. If the cherimoya brought him memories of his native land only
in passing, the impression produced by it stirred up in him different ideas. His brain
apparently received the poetic emotion which, in the service of his own feelings,
produced a version of the bird much more telling than truth itself. For his artificial owl
is the product of an imagination "in the state of grace" (Sabartes 24).
Sabartes gave another example Picasso, who saw me constantly, knew that I
was not the same without a cigar between my teeth. (In Paris during World War II
tobacco was scarce.) This was enough to cause him to envision the image of a cigar in a
piece of wood. A few strokes of oil paint performed the "miracle" of suggesting the cigar
I lacked. Had not the imagination of Picasso intervened, the little stick would have been

thrown forever in the fire or on the trash heap. Something memorable had been created
(Sabartes 24).
Gilot asked Picasso why he troubled himself to incorporate bits and pieces
of junk into his sculptures instead of starting from scratch using whatever
material he chose to build up his forms. Picasso responded There's a good reason
for doing it this way," he told me. "The material itself, the form and texture of those
pieces, often gives me the key to the whole sculpture. The shovel in which I saw the
vision of the tail- feathers of the crane e the idea of doing a crane. Aside from that it's
not that I need that ready-made element, but I achieve reality through the use of
metaphor. My sculptures are plastic metaphors. It's the same principle as in painting.
I've said that a painting shouldn't be a trompe-l'oeil but a trompe-l'esprit. I'm out to
fool the mind rather than the eye. And that goes for sculpture too (Picasso qtd. in
Gilot 296).
Again Sabartes told the story of Picasso constructing a human form in
outline from some fragments of straw, explaining that first Picasso had to
discover it, to foresee how it could be used and be capable of receiving
inspiration to create. (Sabartes 24).
Lhote described how Picasso used his memory of forms in creating But
this craftsman's flights of fancy do not have their origin solely in the unconscious, as his
usual interpreters - who are sometimes of astounding credulity - would have us believe.
His mind is a prodigious reservoir of already invented forms, an encyclopedia kept
carefully up to date, and it feeds his inexhaustible invention with reminiscences of the
most famous historical creations, from the Altamira caves to the studio of Arcimboldo
(Lhote 213).

All of these examples demonstrate that Picasso did not feel comfortable
working only from his imagination. He was most at ease working with images
suggested to him which he could alter through the magic of metamorphosis. He
could find his subjects anywhere. According to Francoise Gilot, Picasso often
said "When there's anything to steal, I steal" (Picasso qtd. in Gilot 292).
Furthermore, the first issue of "Minotaure" was also illustrated with a series
of Picasso drawings inspired by the central panel of Grunewald's Isenheim

Altarpiece representing the Crucifixion. Picasso had already treated this theme
in a painting of 1930 and reverted to it in 1932. Picasso said to his friend Brassai,
the photographer I love that painting, and I tried to interpret it. But as soon as I
began to draw it became something else entirely. Brassi commented I mention this
series for a specific purpose, since it was the first time, to my knowledge, that a great
painting had touched off the creative spark in him and he had concentrated his energies
on a masterpiece, in order to extort its secret (Brassai qtd. in Leymarie 246).
Like Picasso's friend Brassai, persons commenting on Picasso's work have
not fully realized the extent of his relationship with art history. All report the
obvious influences of his formative years. Some mention his reworking of Le
Nain's "The Peasants' Repast" in 1917-18 as an early example. Others refer to the
obvious named paraphrasing of the work of Manet, Courbet, Poussin and El
Greco of the late 1940's and 1950's. Some state that after 1961 Picasso rarely
stretched out to the work of other artists. However, describing a work in
progress during the early 1960's Picasso said That's not Delacroix at all. It's
wavering between Poussin and David. But it hasn't any connection. Perhaps it's the
Sabine women... (Picasso qtd. in Parmelin 52).
He then asked for reproductions of Poussin and of the Sabine women to be
sent to him.
The works presented in this series demonstrate that Picasso continually
depended on the masters. From his "formative years" right up to the last works
of his career this was his method. This relationship was more than mere
copying. It played a significant role in the development of twentieth century art.
Picasso's reputation as the great revolutionary of art creating new styles as a
solitary genius must be re-evaluated. He did not do it alone. He had the entire
tradition of art history to assist him and his work is a continuation and reflection
of all the cultures that preceded him.

Works cited.
Barr, Alfred H. Picasso: 50 Years of His Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1946 219. Print.
Barr, Alfred H, Masters of Modern Art, quoted by Sam Hunter in Modern
French Painting New York, Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1956 151. Print.
Hilton, Timothy Picasso, New York: Praeger, 1975 252. Print.
Hilton, Timothy Picasso, New York: Praeger, 1975 250. Print.
Hunter, Sam Modern French Painting New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 1956
151-152. Print.
Hilton, Timothy Picasso, New York: Praeger, 1975 254.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken,
1962 343. Print.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken, 1962
343. Print.

Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York:
Schocken, 1962 387. Print.
Duncan, David Douglas Picasso's Picassos New York: Harper, 1961 521. Print.
Berger, John Success and Failure of Picasso New York: Pantheon 1989 185. Print.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken,
1962 76. Print.
Penrose, Sir Roland. Picasso: His Life and Work, 2nd ed. New York: Schocken,
1962 76. Print.
Hilton, Timothy Picasso, New York: Praeger, 1975 11. Print.

Gilot, Francoise written by Lake, Carleton Life with Picasso London: Virago
Press 1990 192. Print.
Gilot, Francoise written by Lake, Carleton Life with Picasso London: Virago
Press 1990 43. Print.