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拍品專文
Picasso's paintings, drawings and prints of the final years of his life are unabashed in their overt display of eroticism, and openly celebrate the powers and pleasures of human sexuality. The present drawing was done when the artist was well into his eighty-ninth year, and treats once again what by now had become the dominant and obsessive interest of its creator, the relationship between man and woman. However, the artist's purpose goes well beyond the fabrication of self-indulgent erotic fantasies or mere prurient display for its own sake. John Richardson, Picasso's biographer, has written: 'Picasso's sexual powers may have waned - impotence is thought to have set in around his eighthieth year - but sex was still very much on his mind. 'We [Picasso and his wife Jacqueline] don't do it anymore, but the desire is still with us, he told Brassaï. To compensate for his loss of libido, Picasso came to see sex and art, the brothel and the studio, as metaphors for each other - the sexual act standing for the creative act, and vice-versa. Hence the explicitly erotic nature of so many of these late drawings' (in the introduction to Christie's, New York, sale catalogue, Cavaliers and Courtesans: A Collection of Picasso Master Drawings, 19 November 1998, p. 7).
Etreinte displays the final evolution of several inter-related themes in Picasso's late work: the use of lovers, usually cast in the scenario of the artist and his model, as his primary dramatis personae, and the presence of the musketeer as the artist's own surrogate. The lovers are the oldest of these subjects in Picasso's oeuvre, appearing as far back as the turn of the century; however, except in certain explicit drawings intended for private viewing only, they were usually conceived in a far more sentimentalised and decorous manner than seen here. The artist and model theme came to preoccupy Picasso much later, initially in a series of 180 drawings that were published in Verve in 1954, and became known as Picasso's 'Human Comedy'. Following his great series of Delacroix, Velázquez and Manet variations, Picasso in 1963 embarked on an extended sequence of artist and model paintings. The musketeer theme emerged as the most recent development of all, stemming from the introduction of a cavalier/painter into an artist and model painting dated 13-14 March 1963 (Z 23, no. 171). Picasso described the characters in this picture as being Rembrandt and Saskia, referring to the early Rembrandt painting likewise titled (dobe circa 1635), in which the Dutch master depicts himself cavorting with his wife (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, fig. 1).
The 17th century cavalier became a serial subject on its own in 1967-1968, after Picasso re-read Alexander Dumas' novel Les trois mousquetaires while convalescing from surgery. The brave, noble and lusty musketeer became Picasso's favourite personal representative, a character that he felt embodied his own qualities and fantasies. The musketeer also served as a means for further exploring Baroque painting, especially the work of two artists Picasso had long admired, Velázquez and Rembrandt. The latter especially came to preoccupy Picasso during this period. Picasso no doubt noted certain parallels with his forbear - both he and Rembrandt had long careers, and excelled at drawing and print-making as well as painting, and they shared a fondness of inserting themselves, in one guise or another, into their pictures. Richardson found a set of the six-volume catalogue of Rembrandt's drawings by Otto Benesch in Picasso's library in 1986.
The seated musketeer in Etreinte is a stand-in for Picasso, and with her distinctive long-nosed profile and pulled-back hair, the woman more directly resembles Jacqueline here than in some other late works. The drawing is filled with humorous and insightful contrasts. The musketeer sits wearing only his baggy-topped boots; she stands in modern high heels. The shape of the wineglass (as a vessel, a female form) has its counterpart in the musketeer's genitalia. While the woman's eyes are closed in abandonment to her pleasure, the musketeer looks on with the fabled Picasso gaze, a powerful, all-seeing stare that, as in Spanish popular lore, was itself a powerful expression of male sexual desire.
Picasso's late paintings and drawings were often serial, and by following these variations on a theme, one can sometimes detect a loosely connected narrative thread, continuing from one drawing to the next, or among works done days or even weeks apart. The present drawing was the first of three that Picasso made on 2 February 1971. During the previous week, on 24 and 25 January, he had done a series of drawings in which he depicted a cavalier/painter sketching his model (Z 33, nos. 30-34). The drawing that Picasso executed on 2 February and numbered 'II', also entitled Etreinte and recently sold at Christie's, New York (Z 33, no. 31), shows the painter and his model engaged in impassioned lovemaking. The present drawing, coming between these, fills in the story line. The painter, having drawn his model, here entices her with wine and foreplay, and, in the New York drawing, they finally make love.
Etreinte displays the final evolution of several inter-related themes in Picasso's late work: the use of lovers, usually cast in the scenario of the artist and his model, as his primary dramatis personae, and the presence of the musketeer as the artist's own surrogate. The lovers are the oldest of these subjects in Picasso's oeuvre, appearing as far back as the turn of the century; however, except in certain explicit drawings intended for private viewing only, they were usually conceived in a far more sentimentalised and decorous manner than seen here. The artist and model theme came to preoccupy Picasso much later, initially in a series of 180 drawings that were published in Verve in 1954, and became known as Picasso's 'Human Comedy'. Following his great series of Delacroix, Velázquez and Manet variations, Picasso in 1963 embarked on an extended sequence of artist and model paintings. The musketeer theme emerged as the most recent development of all, stemming from the introduction of a cavalier/painter into an artist and model painting dated 13-14 March 1963 (Z 23, no. 171). Picasso described the characters in this picture as being Rembrandt and Saskia, referring to the early Rembrandt painting likewise titled (dobe circa 1635), in which the Dutch master depicts himself cavorting with his wife (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, fig. 1).
The 17th century cavalier became a serial subject on its own in 1967-1968, after Picasso re-read Alexander Dumas' novel Les trois mousquetaires while convalescing from surgery. The brave, noble and lusty musketeer became Picasso's favourite personal representative, a character that he felt embodied his own qualities and fantasies. The musketeer also served as a means for further exploring Baroque painting, especially the work of two artists Picasso had long admired, Velázquez and Rembrandt. The latter especially came to preoccupy Picasso during this period. Picasso no doubt noted certain parallels with his forbear - both he and Rembrandt had long careers, and excelled at drawing and print-making as well as painting, and they shared a fondness of inserting themselves, in one guise or another, into their pictures. Richardson found a set of the six-volume catalogue of Rembrandt's drawings by Otto Benesch in Picasso's library in 1986.
The seated musketeer in Etreinte is a stand-in for Picasso, and with her distinctive long-nosed profile and pulled-back hair, the woman more directly resembles Jacqueline here than in some other late works. The drawing is filled with humorous and insightful contrasts. The musketeer sits wearing only his baggy-topped boots; she stands in modern high heels. The shape of the wineglass (as a vessel, a female form) has its counterpart in the musketeer's genitalia. While the woman's eyes are closed in abandonment to her pleasure, the musketeer looks on with the fabled Picasso gaze, a powerful, all-seeing stare that, as in Spanish popular lore, was itself a powerful expression of male sexual desire.
Picasso's late paintings and drawings were often serial, and by following these variations on a theme, one can sometimes detect a loosely connected narrative thread, continuing from one drawing to the next, or among works done days or even weeks apart. The present drawing was the first of three that Picasso made on 2 February 1971. During the previous week, on 24 and 25 January, he had done a series of drawings in which he depicted a cavalier/painter sketching his model (Z 33, nos. 30-34). The drawing that Picasso executed on 2 February and numbered 'II', also entitled Etreinte and recently sold at Christie's, New York (Z 33, no. 31), shows the painter and his model engaged in impassioned lovemaking. The present drawing, coming between these, fills in the story line. The painter, having drawn his model, here entices her with wine and foreplay, and, in the New York drawing, they finally make love.