“What I’ve come to realize after 30 years of research is that the pictorial output of Picasso basically consists of drawings rendered in paint. His entire oeuvre is conceived, anticipated and elaborated through drawing.”
(Anne Baldassari)
Give my my pencil, madre, I must be about my drawing. Those joshing words are mine. The anecdote introducing the article is that baby Picasso’s first word was “piz,” which is the last syllable of “lápiz,” the Spanish word for “pencil.” It’s put forward as part of the great man’s legend that he drew, practically, from the cradle.
An experienced artist introduced me to the exercise of drawing without lifting point from paper. I was charmed at how the practice took me out of my head’s visual waxworks. I detect Picasso doing it in the drawing below, but of course <sigh>, with his storied finesse.
… Drawing was not just a quick preparatory pursuit for Picasso; it was an end in itself, and at the very core of his art, a discipline that came before all else… Picasso would draw with whatever he laid his hands on: pencil, crayon, charcoal, red chalk. He would cut pieces of wood and dip them in ink, paint, coffee, grease, anything he could find, when he had the urge to draw.
Picasso’s industry and improvisation inspire. Perhaps because they camouflage muddle I’m a fool for brush and pigment, ever spanking myself for not doing more line. A childhood of coloring books, paint-by-number kits and jigsaw puzzles weighs heavily. But this isn’t about me.
There’s interesting mention of an “ancient studio technique, which Pablo mastered from childhood,” though promoting it to “the basis of the Cubist revolution” sounds inflationary:
… Young Pablo was in charge of making paper cutouts, painting them in different shades and tones, and pinning them to his father’s canvases so that his father could see what effect the different tones would have on the final work. This… would go on to form the basis of the Cubist revolution.
Anne Baldassari, the Picasso scholar interviewed for the article, says the following about a painting titled “The Weeping Woman” (not illustrated in the article):
People say [it] represents his lover Dora Maar, who has been mistreated by him. The reality is that at this time, the Spanish Civil War has just broken out, and Dora Maar is the face and representation of pain: a mask that is crying out with hurt. What Picasso is seeking to do is to mourn the dead of the Spanish Civil War.
Consistent with Susan Sontag’s position Against Interpretation, I like to dwell on the painting as an innovative treatment of a woman weeping. The last two drawings featured in the article (shown above) are exciting. Perhaps because I forget they’re by Picasso.
(Farah Nayeri, “Exploring the ‘Epicenter’ of Pablo Picasso in His Drawings,” New York Times, 10-17-23)
(c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
EthicalDative 
‘Heartfelt, Slapdash, But Unredeemed by Art’
Art is something scrappy and strange; it may hiss rather than purr. How it redeems, presumably, is at the heart of the critic’s project, but also the lay consumer’s. That’s me. In doodling my readings of <clears throat> lineated discourse, I’m at pains, inconsistently, to speak of the “verse-object” as I ponder a given text. I must feel the art before calling it a poem. It’s a high-horse presumption. No it’s not. It’s risible. It’s a stab at bootstrapping an expansive sensibility. Yes it is.
It isn’t clear. The non-ordinary object provokes, disquiets, taunts. An opportunity lies in paying it enough attention so it has a chance to impinge, and you come under its sway. Good critics are people who look, read, listen more closely than we chickens who scurry around “liking” stuff.
The phrase in my title is Roberta Smith’s assessment of painter Henry Taylor’s “excursions into three dimensional works.” It’s dismissive but indulgent, because she really likes his painting. “Taylor’s best impulses,” she writes, “are the ones he answers in two dimensions.” I’ve been swayed by his work before. His paintings are odd and engrossing; raunchy and raw; scrappy and strange.
… Taylor’s paint handling… tends to be startlingly tough and direct. It proceeds in slabs of untempered color and skirmishes of brushwork, sidestepping traditional notions of finish and beauty… Taylor’s paint also makes his figures very present. As do their staring, often dissimilar eyes.
I relish the reference to staring, “often dissimilar” eyes, but what does Smith mean when she says they “make his figures very present”? Her answer may be in the observation that you “can keep pondering their expressions — and the feelings behind them.” Fair enough. I stumbled upon this uncanny feeling of “presence” recently in contemplating Frans Hals’s smiling lute player.
A painting titled “the [sic] dress, ain’t me” has an excitingly faceless figure — who needs one anyway? As if the painter said to himself, “I’ve done enough,” and washed his brushes.
The body language is superb. With her hands gently clenched, the older woman inspects the dress. The work’s palette of browns, ochers, white and light blue is an exemplar of Taylor’s odd, frugal color.
(Roberta Smith, “Henry Taylor’s ‘B Side’ Is Full of Grade-A Paintings,” New York Times, 10-17-23)
(c) 2024 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved