I will admit that Cubism is probably my least favourite movement in art history. I’ve never
been able to identify with its deep reverence of geometric forms, and its bold splashes of
colour have always struck me as kind of…flat. To me, Cubist works always seemed to be built on their own secret codes of abstraction.
But I also have a strange weakness for large travelling exhibits. So when Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris arrived at the Art Gallery of Ontario, I quickly buried my quarrel with flat forms for a few hours.
And, as it turns out, Picasso is an absolutely worthwhile experience, especially for those hoping to glimpse more than a few proto-Cubist works. The exhibition, which has
just toured Madrid, Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, Helsinki, Moscow, St. Petersburg and a few
American cities, is a grand survey of Picasso’s oeuvre, and does a superb job of unveiling
the man behind the cubes. Picasso traces the artist’s surprisingly flexible and evolving style through the decades, and showcases more than 150 works from the Musée’s collection, including paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings.
There are a number of works from Picasso’s pre-Cubism days, such as his “Blue
Period,” which are characterized by unexpectedly realistic portraits of the poor and
underprivileged in steel shades of blue. There are also Picasso’s African art-inspired
works, and several unchaste depictions of the man’s multiple mistresses and muses.
Picasso is also an important glimpse into the artist’s portrayal of the turbulent and war-torn decades of the 1930s and 1940s, and showcases his temporary preoccupation with
destruction, human mortality and vulnerability. Also on display are a number of fantastic
large bronze sculptures – such as The Goat (1950), Death’s Head (1943) and the life-sized Man with Sheep (1949) – which Picasso produced during this period and the decade following it.
And, of course, there are the famous Cubist works, Man with a Guitar (1911) and Violin (1915), as well as studies for his masterpiece, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). But these formidable pieces are juxtaposed with striking glimpses of what seem like the most ordinary moments in Picasso’s life: a photograph of the artist on a beach with a parasol; the artist with a young child in his arms; the artist posing for a self-portrait in a cluttered studio.
What: Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris
Where: Art Gallery of Ontario
When: On until August 26, 2012
Tickets: Visit the AGO website
Maria Gergin is a Toronto-based articling student.
Image: AGO / Picasso