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Lot Essay
A bottle and cakes lie scattered on a table, an array of products waiting for someone-- perhaps even the spectator-- to help themselves. However, there is only one plate, only one glass. Executed in 1919, the luxuriousness of this one-man feast is decadent in the context of the post-war world in which Bouteille de Malaga was painted.
When Georges Braque, Picasso's friend and fellow creator of Cubism, returned from the First World War with a head wound, he found that Picasso's reputation and success had ballooned during his absence. Braque's wound and experiences made him increasingly reclusive, and he estranged himself from his old companion, who was now a celebrity. Picasso had toured Europe with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, feted by monarchs and matrons in many glamorous places and his lifestyle had become increasingly bourgeois since his marriage to the Russian ballerina Olga Kokhlova. The feast on the table in Bouteille de Malaga reflects this change with its selection of dainties, but it also reflects a certain guilt at the enjoyment of that lifestyle: the greens are reminders of the uniforms other artists had been forced to don.
Picasso's work often reflected the stylistic influence of Braque; Bouteille de Malaga is no exception. In 1919, inspired by works exhibited in Braque's first one man show since 1908, Picasso painted several Cubist still-lifes of guéridon tables in front of windows. The expansive views behind the focal point shattered the tight Cubist appreciation of space and the relationship between the objects depicted. In Bouteille de Malaga, Picasso discreetly employs the same effect by painting an open door at the top right. The Cubist rendering of the objects masks his unconventional evocation of the space of the room. Picasso's devotion to Cubism had waned: he found it less revolutionary and increasingly constraining, and was increasingly being drawn to Neo-Classicism. The absence of his strict and restrictive dealer Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, in exile in Switzerland, accomodated this artistic emancipation. Kahnweiler had demanded works suited to his Cubist market. Although Picasso never completely abandoned his Cubist idiom, least of all in his still-lifes, it was to become merely one style among several.
Bouteille de Malaga is not only a reaction to Braque. The bottle clearly has 'Malaga' emblazoned upon it. Malaga, referring to the Spanish drink contained in the bottle, was also the town of Picasso's birth and his home for the first ten years of his childhood. It is a place that elicited mixed feelings in the artist. Picasso's father, don José Ruiz Blasco, had been forced to leave the town in search of employment elsewhere, prompted by the widespread loss of grapes to disease in the Malaga area. This resulted in the loss of the Picasso family's vineyards. Bouteille de Malaga thus evokes a strong sense of regret and resentment. But such issues are never so simple in Picasso's works. In 1919, the year Bouteille de Malaga was executed, Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev on set designs for Tricorne, a ballet about life in Spain. In so doing, Picasso found a pretext for executing huge, grandiose artistic evocations and explorations of his homeland. The ballet was an adaptation of Pedro de Alarcón's novel, El Sombrero de Tres Picos, a tale of life in Andalusia. Picasso enjoyed revisiting and representing his culture in such a monumental fashion, reviving his mixed feelings towards his native Andalusia.
The present painting belongs to a select group of major Picassos which found their way to Scandinavia shortly after the second world war.
When Georges Braque, Picasso's friend and fellow creator of Cubism, returned from the First World War with a head wound, he found that Picasso's reputation and success had ballooned during his absence. Braque's wound and experiences made him increasingly reclusive, and he estranged himself from his old companion, who was now a celebrity. Picasso had toured Europe with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, feted by monarchs and matrons in many glamorous places and his lifestyle had become increasingly bourgeois since his marriage to the Russian ballerina Olga Kokhlova. The feast on the table in Bouteille de Malaga reflects this change with its selection of dainties, but it also reflects a certain guilt at the enjoyment of that lifestyle: the greens are reminders of the uniforms other artists had been forced to don.
Picasso's work often reflected the stylistic influence of Braque; Bouteille de Malaga is no exception. In 1919, inspired by works exhibited in Braque's first one man show since 1908, Picasso painted several Cubist still-lifes of guéridon tables in front of windows. The expansive views behind the focal point shattered the tight Cubist appreciation of space and the relationship between the objects depicted. In Bouteille de Malaga, Picasso discreetly employs the same effect by painting an open door at the top right. The Cubist rendering of the objects masks his unconventional evocation of the space of the room. Picasso's devotion to Cubism had waned: he found it less revolutionary and increasingly constraining, and was increasingly being drawn to Neo-Classicism. The absence of his strict and restrictive dealer Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, in exile in Switzerland, accomodated this artistic emancipation. Kahnweiler had demanded works suited to his Cubist market. Although Picasso never completely abandoned his Cubist idiom, least of all in his still-lifes, it was to become merely one style among several.
Bouteille de Malaga is not only a reaction to Braque. The bottle clearly has 'Malaga' emblazoned upon it. Malaga, referring to the Spanish drink contained in the bottle, was also the town of Picasso's birth and his home for the first ten years of his childhood. It is a place that elicited mixed feelings in the artist. Picasso's father, don José Ruiz Blasco, had been forced to leave the town in search of employment elsewhere, prompted by the widespread loss of grapes to disease in the Malaga area. This resulted in the loss of the Picasso family's vineyards. Bouteille de Malaga thus evokes a strong sense of regret and resentment. But such issues are never so simple in Picasso's works. In 1919, the year Bouteille de Malaga was executed, Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev on set designs for Tricorne, a ballet about life in Spain. In so doing, Picasso found a pretext for executing huge, grandiose artistic evocations and explorations of his homeland. The ballet was an adaptation of Pedro de Alarcón's novel, El Sombrero de Tres Picos, a tale of life in Andalusia. Picasso enjoyed revisiting and representing his culture in such a monumental fashion, reviving his mixed feelings towards his native Andalusia.
The present painting belongs to a select group of major Picassos which found their way to Scandinavia shortly after the second world war.