Picasso

From 1890, when he was nine, Picasso’s family saved virtually every scrap of paper on which he drew. Harbingers of Picasso’s later genius appear in fragmented and distorted aspects of form and scale, depictions garlanded by numerical and alphabetical symbols, a proliferation of trompe l’oeil, visual puns, outrageous caricatures, incongruous juxtapositions, and the like. We do not know whether Picasso consciously thought back to these graphic experiments when, two decades later, he and Georges Braque were inventing cubism, but at least at an unconscious level, Picasso could tap this reservoir of youthful experimentation.The standard story told of Picasso is that his precocious talent enabled him to surpass, without effort, all other artists in his milieu. It is worth considering Picasso’s own opinion that what is often considered early genius is actually the naïveté of childhood. “It disappears at a certain age without leaving traces.” It is possible that a young child who shows unusual flair will one day become an artist, but he or she “will have to begin again from the beginning. I did not have this genius. For example, my first drawings could not have been hung in a display of children’s work. These pictures lacked childlikeness. . . . At a youthful age I painted in a quite academic way, so literal and precise that I am shocked today.” At an exhibition of children’s art, Picasso once quipped, “When I was their age, I could draw like Raphael, but it has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like them.”In such remarks, Picasso exalted children’s productions but also distanced his youthful self from the romantic view of artistic talent. It is true that the works preserved by Picasso’s family support the notion of Picasso as an aspiring academic painter (as his father was) and not as a charming naïf. However, we lack drawings by Picasso from his first eight years and so cannot determine the resemblance of his earliest efforts to those of other children. Moreover, his youthful caprices and marginalia may have been as crucial in his artistic development as his formally conceived early paintings. My own conclusion is that Picasso’s output during the first decade of his life was unusually skilled rather than frankly precocious but that no word short of prodigy can describe him in his spectacular progress over the next several years.Apollinaire asserted that there were two kinds of artists: the unreflective virtuoso, who relies on nature, and the cerebral structurer, who relies on understanding. Mozart could serve as prototype for the first, Beethoven for the second. As a prodigy, Picasso epitomized the second type, but, said Apollinaire, he was able to convert himself into the first. “Never has there been so fantastic a spectacle as the metamorphosis he underwent in becoming an artist of the first type.” Picasso himself sensed the paradox of this transformation when he complained to Gertrude Stein, “If I can draw as well as Raphael, I have at least the right to choose my way, and they should recognize that right, but no, they say no.”The Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1906) stands out as an indicator of this transformation: Picasso asked his subject to remain for over eighty sittings. Then he went away for the summer, annihilated the recognizable facial features, and finished the portrait away from Stein, substituting masklike features for realistic ones. (Chastised because the portrait did not look like Stein, Picasso reportedly responded with one of the notable artistic one-liners of the century: “Don’t worry, it will.”)

1. According to the author, Picasso’s artistic achievements were in large part the result of his:

• retention of the effortless genius of childhood.

• rejection of the art movements of his time.

• practice of making multiple revisions and amendments.

• learning to work with apparent spontaneity.

2. The word nature is used in the sense of:

• objects and scenes of the natural world.

• elementary aesthetic principles.

• intuitive artistic mastery.

• uncontrolled creative impulses.

What is the author’s response to the standard story about the origin of Picasso’s genius?

• Acceptance: Picasso’s early drawings are described as unusually skilled and his progress as spectacular.

• Neutral: It is mentioned only to introduce the discussion of Picasso’s eventual virtuosity.

• Revisionist: It is presented as applicable only to Picasso’s earliest efforts.

• Skepticism: Picasso’s earliest drawings are presumed to be not especially precocious.

The assertion that Picasso’s early productions contain harbingers of his later art is NOT clearly consistent with the information about:

• the way Picasso described his first drawings.

• the distortions of form and scale in these works.

• the lack of drawings from his first eight years.

• the playfulness of his graphic experimentation.

Which of the following innovative forms of art that are identified with Picasso most clearly exemplifies his own implied goals?

• Sculptures constructed of various surprising “found objects”

• "Blue period” paintings with muted colors and elongated figures

• Plates decorated with boldly colored, simply indicated faces

• Single-tone paintings with “hard-edged” multifaceted perspectives