Picasso and Giacometti in Paris. Picasso museum october 4,2016- February 6,2017

The little art seeker loved the exhibition dedicated to two great artists of the 20th century:Pablo Picasso and Alerto Giacometti.

From their initial meeting in the early 1930s,through the formal theoretical explorations of the surrealist period ,to their extensive post-war dialogue on the struggles of returning to realism ,the two artists never stopped toexchange views on their art.

The exhibition offers an overview of the different apects of their artistic production and the different solutions they adopted .

Modern sculpture

Rodin and Giacometti were both inspired by the great sculptor Auguste Rodin.When the two realised the impossibilty of rendering a sculpture in a realistic way they took parallel paths.Giacometti;a disciple of the old master Bourdelle,abandoned the classic portrait of his sister Ottila for the stylised lines and multifaceted cubist decoupage practised by Picasso in the sculpture of his mistress,Fernande Olivier(1909).

From left to right :the jester.Picasso.1905.Fernande Olivier.Picasso.1906.Ottila’s head.Giacometti.1925

Picasso and Giacometti began to sculpt and paint very early on.The sons of artists ,they each grew up in the paternal studio ,where they worked on their first pieces under their fathers’s eyes.They trained by creating portraits of family members and were each 14 years old when Picasso created “the barefoot girl” and Giacomettti”still life with apples” both of which attest to a paternal influence in the rendering of the reality.After a short stay at the school of fine arts ,the two young men decided to leave their native countries and to settle in the capital of the Arts:Paris!

Picasso.self-portrait.Paris.1901.

Giacometti.Self-portrait.1921

Picasso.The barefoot girl.1895

Giacometti.Still life with apples.1915

Distant influences

Picasso and Giacometti were close observers of non-Western art and archeological objects.They drew inspiration from art reviews and the collection of the Louvre and the Trocadéro Museum of Ethnography ,picking up details of masks ,shields and statuettes and re-imagining them in theiir own way.Picasso’s and Giacometti’s sculptures evoke the works from the Cyclades ,oriental antiquities and sculptures from Africa and Oceania.

Alberto Giacometti:Spoon woman.1927 Alberto Giacometti.Stela 1925-1927

Picasso.three figures under a tree.1907-1908

the living and the dead

The banalisation of the body after death and its materialisation into an object were two subjects which interested these two creators.Both of their bodies of work feature lifeless figures,skulls or heads .The skull is the vivid expression of the vanitas and memento mori.

Skull,urchins and lamp on a table.Picasso.1946.

Pablo Picasso, Skull, 1943, Bronze, Museum Picasso, Paris.

Alberto Giacometti.Skull.1934.fondation Giacometti.

Alberto Giacometti.the walking man.1960

Eros and Thanatos

In representations of love,where all forms of shapelessness are explored ,images of Eros (love)are subjected to just as much dismemberment of the human body as those of Thanatos.(death)

The distorsions of the human body culminate in organic metaphors whose strength of synthesis expresses a concentration of dreams.

Figures at the seaside.Pablo Picasso.1931

The lover and the model

A series of painted and sculpted portraits of the loved woman represented as a muse were produced by these two great painters.Thus the face of Dora Maar,Picasso’s lover invades many of the painter’s canvases in a tortured way .Aneete ,Giacometti’s future wife ,served as a model for long series of poses and in her face the artist kept searching for the impossible absolute.The exhibition displays beautiful portraits of the two muses.

Alberto Giacometti:Three portraits of Annette.

Pabo Picasso.Portrait of Dora Maar.Paris.1937

A return to realism

After the second World War,the two artists returned to Paris ,where they visited each other regularly.Their works from this time revisits the realism of daily life.For Picasso both spaces and characters became oppressive and somber ,while Giacometti erected frozen,motionless figures from rough,stone-like bronze.To create his famous dog(1951),Giacometti chose the slender silhouette of thr Afghan hound that belonged to his friend Picasso.

Cat Catching a Bird, 1939 by Pablo Picasso

the goat and the monkey -mother.Pablo Picasso

6 works by Picaso and Giacometti:Child with the doves.Picasso.1943-Paul in Arlequin.1924-Caroline crying.1962.Giacometti.Bust of man .1953;The cat and the dog by Giacometti.

If you visit our beautiful city of Paris,take a couple of hours to see this very moving exhibition focused upon the friendship and creations of two great artists who marked the French creation.