Lot Essay
Picasso could look back upon the year 1914 with a good deal of warmth and nostalgia. It had been memorable for a productive and idyllic stay in Avignon with his companion Eva Goulet. During this year he had stretched the boundaries of traditional painting with his papiers colls, created new forms in sculpture with his assemblages, and had actually united the two disciplines with his relief contructions. His happiness with Eva and a newly-won financial success were reflected in the sunny lyricism of the Avignon works, for which he adopted an airy, pointillist technique. Some writers have applied the label "Rococo Cubism" to this period, which is, however, largely misleading. While it may appropriately characterize the free, open forms and colors in these works, it ignores their intensely original and highly disciplined structure.
The year 1915 represented a rapid change in the artist's fortunes. By the time Picasso returned to Paris in the fall of 1914, the pall of war had descended upon the city. Braque, Derain and Apollinaire went to the front. As a Spanish national Picasso avoided call-up and was viewed suspiciously as a foreigner. Cubism itself began to look to many like a German conspiracy aimed at the hallowed traditions of French art. Picasso's German-born dealers Kahnweiler and Thannhauser were deported and their inventories sequestered. Worst of all, Eva's health deteriorated. The artist wrote to Gertrude Stein:
"My life is hell -- Eva is still ill and gets worse every day and now has been in a nursing home for a month...I hardly do any work. I run backwards and forwards to the nursing home and spend half of my time on the Mtro...However, I've done a picture of a Harlequin that I think...is the best I've ever done." (quoted in P. Daix and H. Rosselet, op. cit., p. 340).
Picasso refers to Arlequin, painted in autumn, 1915 (Zervos vol. II**, no. 555; coll. The Museum of Modern Art, New York). Indeed, while his production slowed during this difficult period, and his paintings possess a more sombre quality when compared to the Avignon works, his painting carries over many of the formal characteristics of the earlier phase. There is furthermore a deepening complexity in his compositions, and a maturation and mastery in the use of new techniques.
The present watercolor is one of a series painted in 1915 which takes as a central motif the shape of a guitar or other musical instruments. While the scale is small, the conception is grandly complex, as the artist strives to integrate the still-life subject within the context of the room. Common to all works in this series is a decorative wall molding which defines the rear confines of the room. The guitar itself is cubistically "deconstructed", existing half as shadow, and half as trompe l'oeil wood patterning. Picasso utilizes the pointillist technique of the Avignon period to lighten the spatial complexity of his forms. The overlapping, discontinuous shapes stem directly from his experience with papiers colls. In contrast to the earlier collages, however, Picasso's use of color here is varied and intense, ranging from hot reds to cool blue-greens. Indeed, the multi-textured, translucent planes lend this watercolor a jewel-like appearance. The effect is never overtly ornamental or decorative, however; the planar density of this composition is as rigorously intellectual and masterful in its calculation as in any previous stage of Picasso's Cubism.
The year 1915 represented a rapid change in the artist's fortunes. By the time Picasso returned to Paris in the fall of 1914, the pall of war had descended upon the city. Braque, Derain and Apollinaire went to the front. As a Spanish national Picasso avoided call-up and was viewed suspiciously as a foreigner. Cubism itself began to look to many like a German conspiracy aimed at the hallowed traditions of French art. Picasso's German-born dealers Kahnweiler and Thannhauser were deported and their inventories sequestered. Worst of all, Eva's health deteriorated. The artist wrote to Gertrude Stein:
"My life is hell -- Eva is still ill and gets worse every day and now has been in a nursing home for a month...I hardly do any work. I run backwards and forwards to the nursing home and spend half of my time on the Mtro...However, I've done a picture of a Harlequin that I think...is the best I've ever done." (quoted in P. Daix and H. Rosselet, op. cit., p. 340).
Picasso refers to Arlequin, painted in autumn, 1915 (Zervos vol. II**, no. 555; coll. The Museum of Modern Art, New York). Indeed, while his production slowed during this difficult period, and his paintings possess a more sombre quality when compared to the Avignon works, his painting carries over many of the formal characteristics of the earlier phase. There is furthermore a deepening complexity in his compositions, and a maturation and mastery in the use of new techniques.
The present watercolor is one of a series painted in 1915 which takes as a central motif the shape of a guitar or other musical instruments. While the scale is small, the conception is grandly complex, as the artist strives to integrate the still-life subject within the context of the room. Common to all works in this series is a decorative wall molding which defines the rear confines of the room. The guitar itself is cubistically "deconstructed", existing half as shadow, and half as trompe l'oeil wood patterning. Picasso utilizes the pointillist technique of the Avignon period to lighten the spatial complexity of his forms. The overlapping, discontinuous shapes stem directly from his experience with papiers colls. In contrast to the earlier collages, however, Picasso's use of color here is varied and intense, ranging from hot reds to cool blue-greens. Indeed, the multi-textured, translucent planes lend this watercolor a jewel-like appearance. The effect is never overtly ornamental or decorative, however; the planar density of this composition is as rigorously intellectual and masterful in its calculation as in any previous stage of Picasso's Cubism.