Perspective on Picasso: Women of War
(ESSAY)
Perspective on Picasso: Guernica, L’Aubade & Les Femmes d'Alger; the Women of War
Ellen Frances / 12.18.21
I.
Picasso’s Guernica (1937) was painted at the behest of Spanish Republic officials for inclusion in the Paris World’s Fair as a response to the Spanish Civil War. Depicting a complex meditation on human suffering, it is considered to be one of the most impactful anti-war paintings in history and represents the modern day terrors of political violence from 9/11 to Iraq.
In his essay on Guernica from Picasso and The Truth, art historian T.J. Clark examines the notion that Guernica’s meaning fundamentally lies in the breach of an ancient human contract between life and death. He argues that the understanding of life’s connection to death is accepted as an unwritten law among the living. In the instance of mass bloodshed or terrorism however, death at a grand scale becomes shocking and incomprehensible. The Spanish artist Goya, whose work greatly influenced Picasso, dealt with similar political subject matter in his 19th century masterpiece The Third of May. By using a mysterious geometric light to draw attention to a victim of war while all other figures remain darkened, Goya achieves a surreal, nightmarish quality. Picasso achieves this quality in Guernica through layered symbolism. He builds out a multi-dimensional world utilizing visual and psychological depth. Everything from the lack of pigment to the placement of obscured forms makes a somber statement indicative of wartime. It is through close examination however, that the horrors of Guernica materialize. For instance, to the far left of the canvas is the abstract rendering of Picasso’s recurring “weeping woman” holding her child beneath a bull. The woman’s head is tilted back with her mouth open as she screams. Her face is twisted and her tongue is sharply pointed. She is holding the lifeless body of a child whose eyes appear to have rolled back in it’s head. Her breasts are exposed as they would be while nursing - giving nourishment to her child, who has now died. Above her stands a bull, emblematic of Spanish tradition and Picasso’s youth. Yet, the bull itself is a living creature susceptible to attack. Together these three forms express unthinkable agony as a brutal result of political agenda.
Further disrupting the notion of life’s cycle is the modernization of combat. Guernica was attacked by airstrike, with bombs being dropped on the center of town for hours. Though airstrikes had been used as a form of warfare for decades up to that point, Picasso contemplates the progression of destruction through modernization. In the lower-central area of the composition Picasso includes a dismembered warrior. The arm is cracked and hollow, reminiscent of the Greco-Roman sculptures he studied as an art student. In the figure's hand is a broken sword, a weapon that poses no threat to bombs. The symbolic elements in this detail speak to the loss of ancient understandings, further supporting Clark’s position that Guernica unravels, layer by layer, the suffering induced by man-made hellish disorder in defiance of life’s longstanding agreement with death.
Both before and after the completion of Guernica, Picasso created numerous studies focused on the motif of a weeping woman. In Picasso & The Weeping Women, Judi Freeman suggests that the symbolism of a woman in agony can be traced back to Picasso’s childhood, noting that Picasso spoke of his mother fleeing their home in fear with a handkerchief over her head during an earthquake. Not mentioned in Freeman’s essay, but common in Spanish religious traditions, is the presence of a head scarf or handkerchief over a woman’s head to show reverence, grief or humility. Similarities with regard to mood and motif can be seen in the The Beds of Death by Goya, which centers on a cloaked woman with her head covered and bent over mournfully. Freeman, like Clark, notes the major influence Goya’s work had on Picasso and particularly on Guernica. It is likely that these aforementioned images consciously (or unconsciously) influenced some “weeping woman” studies such as Picasso’s Weeping Head (1937). This particular study, and several within it’s series, include handkerchiefs on or alongside a woman’s face which is twisted in a grotesque manner as a result of fear and pain. Like the other sketches, Weeping Head repeats what appears to be Picasso’s processing of his own identity in relation to the belief structures of his heritage by way of suffering women as a metaphor. For Picasso, the form of therapy required to process such acts of violence, like the bombing of Guernica, centers on an obsessive need to draw it out of his system using the “weeping woman” as a visual language.
II.
Picasso had spent many years focusing on his artistic development in Paris and stood firm on his desire to remain there throughout World War II. The influence the war had on his work can be seen in darker pallets and lonely compositions. In Picasso’s L’Aubade (1942) for instance, a geometric nude figure rests on a bed surrounded by dark charcoal walls; indicative of a cold, closed off space - similar to a jail cell. Very little surrounds the figure, with the exception of a musician holding a stringed instrument, but not strumming. L’Aubade is further contextualized when considered as commentary on the work of French neo-classical artist Ingres, whose 19th century painting Odalisque and Slave presents a recling nude surrounded by lavish tapestries and musical entertainment. The stark contrast between the soft, melodic comfort of Ingres’s piece and the harsh, silenced discomfort of Picasso’s, speaks to the mood of the era. Critics, however, failed to make this connection to French history when L’Aubade was displayed at the Salon de la Liberation after the war. Onlookers viewed the show, which included many of Picasso’s wartime works, as dwelling on the darkness of the Nazi regieme instead of celebrating the traditions of France. Negative responses were further fueled by Picasso’s open support of the Communist Party. Feeling insulted and unappreciated, Picasso soon left Paris for the South of France with his new love Françoise Gilot.
Settling in Antibes, near the Mediterranean, Picasso felt inspired by his new romance and by ancient mythology. This shift in subject matter, post WWII, can be seen in his uplifting work Joie de Vivre (1946). Created with house paint and construction board available at the time, the piece celebrates his adoration of Gilot while giving a nod to his comrade Matisse’s Joy of Life. The composition is focused on a central female figure with full hair and breasts. She is surrounded by pleasant goat-like characters playing flutes while dancing on a golden landscape. Rendered in colorful pastel tones, it exudes a lightness not felt from Picasso in many years. The work was made for, and can be seen in, the Picasso Museum at Chateau Grimaldi. The establishment allowed Picaso to use their grounds as a studio at the time, with the agreement that the work would stay on the premises. Picasso was very productive under this arrangement, producing not only paintings, but sculptural works as well. After Joie de Vivre was finished, Gilot became pregnant with their first child. With this newfound happiness and supportive environment, Picasso decided to permanently relocate to the South of France. He purchased his first property in the area shortly after the birth of their child.
III.
Picasso Painted Les Femmes d'Alger (1955) or The Women of Algiers after a 19th century painting of the same name by French artist Delacroix. The original Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement hangs in the Louvre in Paris and Picasso is known to have viewed it there. The painting depicts women adorned with beautiful fabrics and surrounded by lavish interiors, relaxing in a room. Though the women are not expressly in a harem, there is a Euro-oriental sensuality which has captivated viewers throughout history. The Delacroix has inspired many famous artists due to it’s exotic subject matter and rich colors, but for Picasso in particular, studying this piece was an homage to those he loved. Just before Picasso created his studies of Les Femmes d'Alger, his longtime friend, and sometimes rival, Matisse died in 1954. Matisse’s work, like Picasso’s, often made reference to odalisques, or chambermaids of a harem. Delacroix was a great inspiration to Matisse, and in grappling with his death Picasso produced many studies of Les Femmes d'Alger, including fifteen canvases. In his renditions, the women are geometric, brightly colored and the perspectives are flattened. Picasso’s history with cubism is reflected in these choices, as is Matisse’s work with colorful cut outs. Matisse is not the only presence in Picasso’s Les Femmes d'Alger, however. With each study Picasso made, the dark haired woman depicted in the Delacroix progressively took on the features of Jacqueline, Picasso’s second wife and last partner. As Jacqueline’s presence became more prominent in each painting, so too did her role in Picasso’s life. Jacqueline was not just his wife, but his muse and eventually his unofficial manager, agent and keeper of his estate.
Picasso’s Les Femmes d'Alger made an appearance at MoMA in a 1980 retrospective along with Picasso’s Las Meninas (1957), after Velazquez. Housed in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Velazquez’s La Meninas is recognized as a Spanish masterpiece. The painting explores the relationship between the viewer and the subjects as the composition has a voyeuristic quality, despite the central figure staring out from the canvas. Picasso was familiar with this painting as a child, and it had an impact on him from the onset of his artistic endeavors. Having recently become the director of the Prado in the late 50’s, Picasso decided to pay homage to this Spanish work as a form of artistic expression through self exploration. The differences between Velazquez and Picasso’s Las Meninas are vast. Picasso works in gray scale while Velazquez uses rich color. Picasso assigns his cubist abstraction to the rendering, in contrast to the original classical style. Picasso places the subjects in his studio at La Californie, surrounded by his works of art and his dog. In adding these personal details to the work as he reimagines it, Picasso uses these paintings as an exercise to reconnect with his past inspirations and with his heritage as a Spanish artist.
To celebrate Picasso’s 75th birthday, MoMA’s first director, Alfred Barr, organized an anniversary retrospective of Picasso’s work in 1957. The show included Picasso’s fifteen works based on The Women of Algiers. The modern abstraction of Picasso’s take on Delacroix inspired the young American artist Roy Lichtenstein, who produced his own Femmes d'Alger, after Picasso, almost a decade later in 1963. Lichtenstein takes the simplification of form further, making smooth linework and color blocks in his famous comic book style. In doing so Lichtenstein provides less of an homage to Picasso and Delacroix, but rather commentary on the “block buster” commercialization of art within popular culture – and how rendition after rendition of an artist’s composition may devalue the notion of an original masterwork.