Artworks a Comparison of Picasso

¶ … Artworks

A Comparison of Picasso and Van Gogh

Pablo Picasso best represents the Modernism of the 20th century: fractured, novel, and abstract, many of Picasso's works are a striking departure from the kind or representational or realistic artwork that preceded it. Best known for Cubism, Picasso distorted his subjects in an attempt to reflect an inner distortion in the soul. His Les Demoiselles d'Avignon may be said to be a forerunner of Cubism. It reveals Cubist tendencies in the heads of the primitively painted women. On the other hand, Vincent Van Gogh's Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase (1886) represents both the colorful reality of nature and a soul alive with the joy of nature. This paper will compare and contrast the Picasso's abstract Les Demoiselles d'Avignon with Van Gogh's Fritillaries and show how, though the two are expressionistic in a sense, they express completely different ideas and values -- the former reflecting modern culture's break-up, and the latter reflecting old-world beauty and grace.

As Clement Greenberg stated, "The avant-garde poet or artist tries in effect to imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own term…" (531). Thus it is that Picasso, a premiere of the avant-garde, sets up his own ideal with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). Les Demoiselles pushed the Post-Impressionists' boundaries and introduced a new and abstract direction in artistic representation of the world. The painting's prostitutes are primitively reproduced in unorthodox lines that jar the viewer's gaze. At this point in his career, Picasso could represent the decline of civilization quite well. Likewise, Picasso's "distorted paintings of women are closely linked to the pleasure he got from hurting them, both physically and in other ways," (Johnson 256). That assertion leaves one to wonder about the artist's relationship with the prostitutes in the picture. At the same time, it is helpful to remember that artistic conventions are broken in order to illustrate the fact that societal conventions are in upheaval. Picasso forecasts the coming violent revolutions in this painting -- and he also observes that the revolution will be big -- as the painting itself shows, coming in at 243.9 x 233.7 cm.

Like Picasso, Van Gogh (though with an old world soul) would find fullest expression once landing in Paris. After a year of being in the company of other Impressionists like Paul Signac -- and being in a city that itself so filled with history, Catholicity, and romance -- Van Gogh's soul brightened from its gloomier days in search of a Protestant mission: his 1886 painted bulbs are the reflection of a spirit that has found something fresh and intense. The orange-red bulbs are off-set by the pointillist backdrop of blue. The copper vase brilliantly brings the whole work to life, reflecting a seemingly new light in Van Gogh's life and style. Here in Paris he was at home. One need not wonder at the new light that is reflected here: according to "the painter Emile Bernard…Vincent was courting "La Segatori," the Italian owner of the Tambourin cafe on the boulevard de Clichy, and used to give her paintings of flowers, "which would last forever" (Fritillaries, Musee d'Orsay, 2006).