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拍品專文
The present work belongs to a series of drawings executed by Picasso in the early months of 1967. He was living with Jaqueline Roque at Mougins, enjoying the success of his recent monographic exhibition held at the Petit and Grand Palais in Paris, in 1966 - a show that confirmed him as one of the greatest masters of the century. In this phase of his career, he was, more than ever before, measuring himself against the artistic tradition of the past.
The watermelon eater, a young boy between a putto and a Caravaggio Bacchus, is a reference to the Spanish Baroque tradition, often the source of inspiration for the artist in the 1960s and early 1970s. This rediscovered hispanidad played a major role in Picasso's late oeuvre.
This composition, moreover, resonates with multifarious quotes from the Old Masters, not limited to the Spanish archetypes. There are close parallels with paintings of the Le Nain brothers, one of which - Le repos du cavalier, now in the Louvre - Picasso owned in his personal collection. The Le Nains often depicted poor farmers or peasant families in the fields, or in countryside settings; their figures, surrounded by peaceful domestic animals, are often caught eating, or playing the flute, like the figures in the present work. Again, though, Picasso had fun mixing and elaborating his sources: another pivotal reference in the present work is to the slice of watermelon in his own Demoiselles d'Avignon. The melon is charged with symbolic meaning, linked to the Mediterranean tradition: summer, heat, the sensual eating of the fruit, its frugal simplicity and chromatically saturated aspect.
A new addition to the traditional dramatis personae of this series is the cockerel, again borrowed from classical depictions of rural settings by the Old Masters. The cock emphasises Picasso's disregard for prettiness in the compositions of this series. He was not concerned about grace, correctness of perspective nor accurate anatomical rendition of the figures. This contempt for academic rules proved to be one of the most fruitful and significant of Picasso's lessons for the generations of painters that followed him. Picasso's art never devolved into mannerism, but constituted a boundless and ever-changing source of ideas and inspiration.
The watermelon eater, a young boy between a putto and a Caravaggio Bacchus, is a reference to the Spanish Baroque tradition, often the source of inspiration for the artist in the 1960s and early 1970s. This rediscovered hispanidad played a major role in Picasso's late oeuvre.
This composition, moreover, resonates with multifarious quotes from the Old Masters, not limited to the Spanish archetypes. There are close parallels with paintings of the Le Nain brothers, one of which - Le repos du cavalier, now in the Louvre - Picasso owned in his personal collection. The Le Nains often depicted poor farmers or peasant families in the fields, or in countryside settings; their figures, surrounded by peaceful domestic animals, are often caught eating, or playing the flute, like the figures in the present work. Again, though, Picasso had fun mixing and elaborating his sources: another pivotal reference in the present work is to the slice of watermelon in his own Demoiselles d'Avignon. The melon is charged with symbolic meaning, linked to the Mediterranean tradition: summer, heat, the sensual eating of the fruit, its frugal simplicity and chromatically saturated aspect.
A new addition to the traditional dramatis personae of this series is the cockerel, again borrowed from classical depictions of rural settings by the Old Masters. The cock emphasises Picasso's disregard for prettiness in the compositions of this series. He was not concerned about grace, correctness of perspective nor accurate anatomical rendition of the figures. This contempt for academic rules proved to be one of the most fruitful and significant of Picasso's lessons for the generations of painters that followed him. Picasso's art never devolved into mannerism, but constituted a boundless and ever-changing source of ideas and inspiration.