Picasso's Sculptures

This paper examines Pablo Picasso's sculptures, a little-known body of work by an artist usually thought of as being one of the greatest painters of all time. Yet, Picasso (1881-1973) produced around 800 sculptural works in a wide range of media over his prolific career, and these works reinforce his undeniable place in modern art. They also provide additional glimpses of the wide range of artistic exploration that characterized his entire career while echoing many of the themes and subjects that permeated his two-dimensional canvases. Initially influenced as a sculptor by Rodin, Picasso experimented with a diverse range of materials, mastering many to produce works that remain startling original and influential.

Werner Spies, who helped bring to light to depth and breadth of Picasso's sculptural work, argues that this work encompasses at least five distinct periods. The first was a three-dimensional exploration of Cubist themes and approaches, primarily using metal and wood. The second focused on iron and modeled work during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The third, perhaps the best-known of Picasso's sculptural works, were his collages of the 1940s. Next came a period concentrating in ceramic works, beginning with the artist's discovery of pottery in 1946 and resulting in substantive pieces in 1948. Finally, his planar sculptures of sheet metal round out his most significant sculptural explorations. Sally Fairweather argues for including a sixth important collect

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ssness and pleasure in experimentation characterized Picasso's approach to the things and materials that came into his hands; many sculptures originated in this way" (17). He worked for awhile in wood, hacking out huge figures as well as tiny, totem-like statuettes. He cast bronze pieces and structures out of found objects, huge constructs in concrete and sheet metal, and complex collages with pieces pinned into place to allow the air to blow them gently and the artist to rearrange them as part of the continuing process of creation. Starting in 1946, he focused considerable attention on work in clay, creating a series of ceramic pieces where his interest was more on the decoration of the piece than on the overall form on which that decoration was applied. Hans L. C. Jaffe writes, "His enormous virtuosity, his ability to do whatever he wants to, contributes to the bewilderment of viewers: they see no connection, no coherence, between works as remote from one another as are the faithful and lovingly naturalistic portraits on the one hand, and the fantastic monsters on the other" (44). Yet, Picasso himself argued that artistic coherence was antithetical to what he ought to be seeking. Spies quotes him as saying, "Everyone's stil

Category: Arts - P