| 1st draft visual rhet (dont know what else to write) |
[Oct. 10th, 2006|12:15 pm] |
Pablo Picasso is known as the “greatest artist of the 20th century” ( ). Along with Georges Braque, Picasso helped to create his own category of art, cubism. During the last few years of his life, and after going through a number of major phases of artwork, he began to paint and sculpt more fantasy and comic type pieces, he also began recreated the work of other masters with his own distinct style. One of the more famous paintings he chose to recreate was that of the “Rape of the Sabines” by Nicolas Poussin in 1640’s. In Picasso’s remake of this historical piece of art, he applies the comic characters of his later works along with the cubism of his earlier works.
Understanding cubism is the first and most important aspect in the appreciation of a majority of Picasso’s works. Picasso first underwent to distinct periods in his art before he came to work with cubism, the blue period, the rose/pink period, and the less known African-influenced period. In the blue period of his art, from 1901-1904, his art was affected by trip he took through Spain and the suicide of a close friend and fellow artist, Carlos Casagemas. The paintings are somber, focusing on other artist, beggars and even prostitutes, the pieces of work from this time in his life were painted with blues and grays. Next came the rose period, 1905-1907, this was a more cheery time in his life characterized with reds, pinks and oranges. The last period before the emerge of cubism was the African-influenced period, 1907-1908, this period spawned from a brief inspiration from artifacts recovered in Africa. Next can his trademark cubism. Cubism is taking a real image, picture, or landscape and taking it apart and analyzing those pieces in term of there shapes and functions in nature, then piecing them back together in a way to negate depth and realism. Most early examples of this are very square and blocky, hence the term cubism, it is a collection of cubes of an object. As time moved on his works continued to change in his sculptures and paintings, he eventually recreated other famous pieces using a loss form of cubism mixed with an almost comic look.
Looking at the life of Picasso himself gives further insight into his work, especially into “Rape of the Sabines”. Picasso was married a number of times and would usually have a number of mistresses as well. He was abusive and cruel to the ladies around him; he would abuse them and torment them. He claimed he was a pacifist, refusing to fight in the Spanish Revolution and in World War I and II. Close friends of Picasso felt he was more a cowered then a pacifist, refusing to fight because he was scared. In his work he shows no sign of being condescending to women or of being apposed to war.
Noting that Picasso’s “Rape of the Sabines” is a remake of the two original “Rape of the Sabines” pieces by Nicolas Poussin in the 1640’s, it is important to not only look at the original pieces but to also look at the time it was painted and the social and economic factors surrounding it. In the days before Rome, Sabines was a tribe living on the land that the Romans would take to construct Rome. It has been presumed, from art work and from legons that the Romans took the Sabines’ women and raped them to help to populate the new city of Rome. In the Original piece, roman men and even guards are tearing women away the women from their men. The men of Rome and the natives are engaged in combat over the women, using swords and fists. In both paintings there is a nicely dressed Roman male on a raised platform overseeing the chaos, watching as if nothing was wrong. The women themselves are fighting and struggling to get free and run from the Romans. In one of the originals, there are babies crawling on the grounds around their mothers bodies that are laid in the street. During this time in Roman history this was considered an acceptable thing to do, to take a women, whether willing or not, as ones own. Women of that time in Rome were mere positions, objects, used by and for men. They had no say in what took place in their lives, and were rarely allowed to leave the house, much less have an opinion. Another role of women in those days was that of status, the more beautiful or the more aristocratic the women’s blood line the higher the status of the man she was married to.
Picasso viewed the various aspects of the paintings, not as parts of a whole but rather as individual pieces, each in a painting of its own. He saw the women on the ground and being carried off, he saw the native men fighting to defend them and he saw the Romans forcing the women to go with them. He saw the babies losing their mothers and the emotional damaged that must have been caused to the women. Once the pieces had been separated, he began to analyze. Although not sympathetic to the ladies surrounding him he found a sense of sympathy for the women of Sabines. His depiction of them is in a single character at the bottom of the painting, mangled and lifeless, with a baby crawling over her. Placing of objects in cubism is a key aspect; by placing the ravished body of the woman in the bottom of the frame seems to show her inferiority and social position to the men in that time. The baby is the symbol of why the Romans raped in the first place, it is crawling over the mother towards the Roman man. The men locked in combat portray the Sabines men struggling against he Roman warriors. Picasso chose to place the Sabines man upon the horse with a cruel spear while the Roman upon foot with full armor and sword, showing the noble, yet vein cause of the natives versus the strong and unmoral Romans. In Picasso’s version the background setting is in the country, while in both originals it is set in the city. Through his analyzing of the settings, Picasso felt that the struggle would have most likely taken place out side the walls of Rome and in the forest or on the plains. Through carefully taking apart, studying, and placing back together, Picasso twisted the entire look of the original he was basing off of to create an abstract piece with little depth or reality to convey the exact same message.
Looking deeper into the issue of whether or not the Romans actually raped the Sabines or not, much uncertainty is found. Some claim that Romans took the women as prisoners and used them as wives. Following was a string of several wars with eventually led to the destruction of the Sabines, with were later integrated into Roman society. Other stories go that the Romulus, the new Roman leader invited the Sabines tribe to a fiest at which they kidnapped all the women and drove the men away. Later the tribes of waged war to reclaim their women, once the fighting began the women called for amnesty, they could not stand to see the men they had fallen in love with fight their brothers and fathers. So the war was stopped and the tribe eventually joined Roman civilization.
I don’t know what else to write!!!! |
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