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"ECHOS 0F PAPIERS COLLés IN PICASSO'S 'EL GUERNICA'"

BY

’ 0
Angela Munera-Ferreira

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Art

History of Art

1991

4&0—9V37

ABSTRACT
"ECHOS OF PAPIER COLLéS IN PICASSO'S 'EL GUERNICA'"

BY
Angela Mfinera-Ferreira

In 1937 when Pablo Picasso painted what is his most
famous and politically charged work of all, §;_§g§;gigg, we
encounter what cannot help but be seen as an "allusion" to
the artist's collage period of 1912-1913 and, more
specifically, newsprint. The use of newspaper clippings in
Picasso's first collages were not only intended to solve a
formal problem encountered in the analytical phase of
cubism, but, a selected tool by which the artist intended to
convey specific socio-political messages such as events of
the on going Balkan Wars (1912—13), or tragic-comical
stories ranging from uncanny accidents to puns and ironical
comments.

From 1916, newspaper clippings tend to disappear in the
artist's work and very rarely are they used in his later
collages. Yet, twenty-five years later, the making of g;
Guernica brings back the memories of the newspaper influence
with all and its feelings of world anxiety and dispair.

By establishing the existing connection between Picasso's
early newsprint collage imagery and the subsequent use of
newsprint symbolism as depicted in El Guernica, (from a
stylistical, historical, social and, political perspective),
this thesis concludes that "newspapers" had such an impact
on Picasso that they become sources of inspiration, both

conceptually and visually.

For my daughter Gabriela

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr.
Eldon Van Liere for his continuous support, advise and
contributions to this thesis. I would also like to
acknowledge Dr. Linda 0. Stanford, who in fact, encouraged
me to pursue this subject, and professors Webster Smith and
Phillis Floyd for their suggestions and observations. To my
husband Leonardo, my most special and profoundest thanks for
all the help, reassurance and patience he offered me

throughout the various stages of this project.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LISTOF FIGURES ......OOOOOCOOOOOOOOOC0.000.000.0000.

INTRODUCTION O.......O0..........OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0....

QEAEIEB
I. ue n'
Historical Background ......... .......... ...... .
The Press and Guernica... ........ ..... ..... ....

El Guernica: A Description.....................
Symbolism in El Guernica.......................

El Guernica and its link to Picasso's Collage
Period of 1912-1914 ............... ...........

II. Anarchism: From Barcelona to Paris

Picasso and Barcelona ........... ......... ......
Picasso and Paris . .............................
III. The Rise of Cubism and Collage .................
CONCLUSION .......................... ........ ........
APPENDIX .... ...... ... ...............................

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......OOOOOOOOOO......OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

14

17

24

29

34

51

6O

83

96

147

LIST OF FIGURES

(All works are by Picasso unless otherwise noted)

1. Q:gnn_nng_Lig_pf_§pnngp_i, January 8, 1937.

2. Qpgnn_nng_iig_pf_£pnngp_;i, January 8-9, June 7, 1937.

3. 2pnpnnip_pf_pngnnnpgn§§ny_n_§nni§tian Slut Tossing a

Cpin po thg Moorish Soldiers, Defenders of the Virgin,

1937-1938.

4. g; Guennica, 1937.

5. Composition Study I, May 1937.

6. Qonposipion Study Ii, May 1, 1937.

7. Composition §tndy Pencil on gesso on wood, May 1, 1937.

8. Composition Study Pencil and Gouache on gesso on wood,
May 2, 1937.

9. Qomposipion Study Pencil on white paper, May 9, 1937.

10. Spnte I. Photographed May 11, 1937.

11. Spate II. Photographed around May 13, 1937.

12. Stnpg IV. Photographed between May 20 and 24, 1937.

13. Minopnunomngny, 1935.

14. Guido Reni, Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1611.

15. Nicolas Poussin, Massac of the Innocents, c. 1628-29.

16. Federico Garcia Lorca, photograph.

17. Julio Gonzalez, Peasnnp Woman pf Montserpat, 1937.
18. Ciencig y Caridad (Science and Charity), 1897.

vi

19. Ramon Casas, Poster: 4 Cats: Pere Romeu, c. 1900.

20. ngtpnit of Josef Cardona, 1899.

21. Printed Menu Cover: 4 cats: Menestra, 1899.

22. 4 ans: Pia; del Dia, c. 1900.

23. Isidro Nonell, A unciation in the Slums, c. 1892.

 

24. Guillaume Apollinaire, Calligrammes, "La Colombe

Poignardee et Le Jet d'Eau", 1913-16.

25. Ine Igilette, 1906.
26- Fernanda. 1905-

27. e o'se es d" vi non, 1907.
28. Georges Braque, Grand Nu, 1908.

29. Woman with Mandolin, spring 1909.

30. Georges Braque, V'olin and Palette, 1910.

31. Georges Braque, Jug and Violin, 1910.

32. Georges Braque, Le Pyrogene, 1910.

33. L'independant, summer 1911.

34. The Tonero, summer 1911.

35. Georges Braque, The Portuguese, summer 1911.

36. Still-life with Chair-caning, May 1912.

37. Georges Braque, Fruit Dish, September 1912.

38. Guitar Sheet Music and Glass, autumn 1912.

39. Boptle of Suze, autumn 1912.

40. fipndent witn a Newspapeg, winter 1912-13.

41. Siphon, glass NewspapenI and Violin, December 1913-14.

42. Tapig wipn Botpie, Wineglass and Newspaper, autumn-
winter 1912.

 

vii

43. Stephane Mallarmé, Un coup de dé§ iamaig n'abolira le
hnsapg, page of poem.

44. Vienx Magc, Glass and Newspaper, spring 1913.

45. Man with a Violin, autumn 1912.

46. Botplg, Cup and Newspaper, autumn 1912.
47. Bottle on a Table, 1912.
48. Bowl witn Eppip, Violin and Wineglass, 1912.

49. Guitar and Sheet Music, autumn 1912.
50. 0 Ave ' es da 5 l'Air, spring 1912.

51. Bonpzait of Ambroise Voilard, 1915.

viii

INTRODUCTION

In 1937 when Picasso painted what is his most famous and
politically charged work of all, §i_§ng;nign, we encounter
what cannot help but be seen as an "allusion" to the earlier
collage period of 1912-13 and, more specifically,newsprint.
In fact, the use of newspaper clippings in Pablo Picasso's
early collages, was not only a device for the solution of
formal problems encountered in the analytical phase of
cubism, but a carefully selected tool by which the artist
intended to convey specific socio-political messages.

Interestingly enough, from 1916, newspaper clippings tend
to disappear in the artists' work and very rarely does one
see them reincorporated in his later collages. Still,
twenty-five years later, the making of El Guernica brings
back the memories of the newspaper influence with all and
its feelings of world anxiety and dispair, just as the
Balkan Wars (1912-13) had previously marked Picasso's early
collage oeuvre.

Picasso's Cubist paintings and collages have
traditionally been seen as his most abstract work. Yet, very
few scholars have analyzed their iconography and message
content and not until the early 1970's was this issue
examined in any depth. The first scholarly approach in this
respect seems to have been Robert Rosenblum's Picasso and

1

2
png_1ypgg;npny_pfi_gnpi§n (1973), but this study is geared
towards interpreting the use of newspaper clippings only for
their suggestive, whimsical and comical purposes.
Nonetheless, Rosenblum's article gave a new dimension to the
interpretation of Picasso's collages in terms of his
utilization of newspaper as a vehicle for alluding to

accounts of important incidents, in particular, political

ones. More recently, Patricia Leighten's Bg-gpggping tne
Universe. Eignsgg ang Anagchism i897-i914 (1989), has

successfully reviewed and analysed Picassos collages from
this point of view. Based on the artists' early contact with
the Spanish and French anarchist movements, Leighten re-
examines these works from an angle scholars in the past
tended to ignore.

Unlike Leighten's book, this research establishes the
connection between E; Quennica's newsprint features and the
early collage period, relating the press' historical and
ideological impact on Picasso with his creative translation
of journalistic images into the central characters of this
masterpiece. Indeed, the linkage is made looking at the
Barcelona and Paris socio-political milieu, for which
Leighten's analysis has been most helpful.

Thus, in this thesis, the existing connection between
Picasso's early newsprint collage imagery and the subsequent
use of newsprint symbolism as depicted in El Guenniga, (from

a stylistical, historical, social and political

3
perspective), will be the central focus of inquiry.

In doing so, chapter 1, will formulate an historical-
political, social, stylistical connection between E;
Gngpnigg and the collage period, based on historical
accounts of the creation and a formal description of the
painting.

Chapter 2 will survey Barcelona's socio-political and
cultural scene during the 1890's emphasizing its direct
influence on Picasso's political formation and artistic
development. Here, Picasso's experience in Paris, during the
first decade of the twentieth century, and his new avant-
garde friends and their influence on the artist will also be
discussed.

Finally, chapter 3 will close by following the
evolution of Cubism as leading to the invention of collage
and subsequently to the emergence of papiers colles and
their well known employment of newspaper fragments. This
section will therefore review the newspaper collages showing
their significance as messages with clear socio-political
meaning. A discussion of the Balkan Wars will also be
included as they are an influential subject matter for many
of Picasso's papiers colles. At this point, the works by
Apollinaire, Jarry and Mallarme, as sources for style and
content in the newspaper collages, will be considered.

It is the main conclusion that in both El Guernica and

the Collages of 1912-14, Picasso reacted to times of outrage

4
with similar artistic and political force, helping us
understand that an early formation (materialized in external
stimuli, e.g. newspapers) did assist him intermittently as a

secure source of conceptual and visual inspiration.

EL GUERNICA

W

In preparation for Spain's participation in the Paris
World Fair of 1937, several representatives of the Spanish
government in Paris approached Picasso to petition his
participation in the decoration of the Spanish Pavilion.
Their intention was to place a large mural or painting by
the artist at the very entrance of the Pavilion.1 As a
consequence of the then chaotic political situation in
Spain, which had resulted in a civil war, the commissioned
painting was intended to draw attention towards the Spanish
people's sufferings, and as political propaganda for the
Republican government.2

In July of 1936 there had been a military uprising in
Spain, which, led by General Francisco Franco and strongly
promoted by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, seriously
threatened the newly legitimate elected Republican
government. Consequently, the Spanish Ambassador in Paris,
Luis Araquistain, conveniently embraced the opportunity of
representing Spain in the Paris World Fair as a way of

reaffirming the standing of the Republican government before

6
the international community. It was the Ambassador's
intention to prove the legitimacy of the Spanish Republic
and to deny Franco's illegally imposed military regime. When
the Spanish Popular Front, formed by a coalition between
socialists, communists and anarchists, democratically came
to power in 1936, with Manuel Azana as president, an ultra-
rightest rebellion erupted that July led by the military.
The insurgents, supported by aristocrats, elitist church
officials and wealthy industrialists led the country into a
bloody civil war which lasted from 1936 to 1939. In its
conclusion the legitimate Republicans or Loyniisps were
defeated and the victorious so called Nationaiists put
General Franco in power (a position he maintained until his
death in 1975). The Spanish civil war, much like the Balkan
Wars of 1912-13, which preceded World War I and from which
Picasso sought inspiration for his newspaper collages
(details in chapter 3), foreshadowed another human tragedy:
World War II.

From the very beginning, and as mentioned earlier, the
Insurgents were supported by the Fascist dictators Hitler
and Mussolini who in November, only after four months into
the war, recognized the Nationalists (Franco's forces) as
the sole official government of Spain with Franco as Head of
State.

Of the international community, the only country that

unconditionally recognized the legitimacy of the Republicans

7

was the Soviet Union which supplied them with military aide
and immediately organized International Brigades of
volunteers.3 On the other hand, the Western "democracies"
not wanting to recognize a leftist elected government,
mainly because of conservative influences, remained neutral.
Nonetheless, the young intellectuals, poets, leftists, and
true democrats of these neutral countries acknowledged the
Republican government. From the United States alone,
approximately 3,000 volunteers arrived in France and then
illegally entered Spain through the Pyrenees to fight
against fascism whether in guerrilla groups or with the
International Brigades.4 Unfortunately, the international
volunteers were not properly trained or equipped and about a
third lost their lives. In addition, well known authors,
such as Ernest Hemingway, Andre Malraux, George Orwell, many
poets and filmakers, contributed to the Republican cause by
extolling and immortalizing its noble ideals.5

During the early months of the civil war, Picasso did not
publicly voice his concerns about the events, even though he
was on top of the news, through constant contact with his
mother, who lived in Barcelona, his close Spanish friends,
and reading local Parisian newspapers. As for the latter,
daily detailed accounts were given about the political
conflict and violence that were tearing Spain apart. Still,
Picasso seemed undecided whether to play a more active role

in the Spanish crisis. His work in the early years of the

8
crisis reveals nothing of the violence and struggles
devastating his native country, on the contrary it is
dominated by sensual themes inspired by his relationships
with Marie-Therese Walter and his new companion Dora Maar.6
If Picasso were in Spain at this time, undoubtedly, he would
have remained politically active (by participating in the
heated debates in the cafes discussing the different
political views and reading the various newspaper accounts
of the latest events) and kept his anarchist friends as he
had during the Barcelona years of his early youth (1895-
1904).

When asked to collaborate with a mural painting for the
Spanish Pavilion, Picasso was hesitant and uncompromising.
This reaction was mainly due to previous unpleasant
experiences with Spanish government officials. Some years
earlier while preparing a proposed exhibition of some of his
work to be shown in Madrid, the artist was insulted by the
director general of Fine Arts who, firstly, "questioned his
Spanish citizenship," and to make things worse, had compared
him to several "traditional" Spanish artists of no special
importance.7 Another unfortunate experience occurred in
1934, in San Sebastian, again with officials concerning the
plans of another exhibition. This time his paintings were
not being insured and the only protection offered was the
escort of the "Guardia Civil" during the trip by train. It

was not only this inadequacy of protection that infuriated

9
Picasso, but also the mere presence of the Guardia Civil,
which had for so long symbolized repression especially for
freethinkers. This sentiment against the Guardia Civil he
shared with other Spanish artists and anarchist circles,
was in itself reason enough for him not to trust his work to
them. Moreover, Picasso had always been unsympathetic
towards officialdom and the pavilion was, after all,
official business geared towards political propaganda for
the Republican government.8

And yet, despite these past experiences with the Spanish
bureaucracy, Picasso could not have remained totally aloof
in relation to the Spanish crisis and surely he
wholeheartedly sympathized with the Republican cause.

After the separation from his wife Olga in 1935, Picasso
once again found himself surrounded by a very politicized
milieu. His closest friends the poet-writers Luis Aragon and
Paul Eluard, both founders of the Surrealist movement and
members of the French Communist Party, actively participated
in French campaigns to aide the Spanish struggle, and
brought the artist even closer to the Spanish reality.9
However, the most influential factor leading to Picasso's
direct involvement with the Spanish civil war was, when
President Azana, in September of 1936, recognized Picasso as'
Spain's greatest living artist and named him Honorary
Director of the Museo del Prado.10 This was a well deserved

and overdue recognition and Picasso accepted with great

10
pride and satisfaction.

In November of the same year, Franco's Nationalist troops
attacked and bombed Madrid aided by the German ggngg;
ngign. The capital city was massively damaged, including
the Mn§g9_ggl_£;ngg and on November 6 the official
government was compelled to evacuate the city and establish
itself in Valencia. As for the Museo del Prado it was
decided that the masterpieces should also be moved to
Valencia and housed in the Museo Ppovisionai de Pinturas in
the reinforced castle Las Torres de Serranos.11 The art
treasures, very well guarded, were transported at night, by
truck, fortunately arriving safely at their destination. To
further insure their safety, Picasso had the idea of
transporting them out of Spain to Geneva and then to Paris,
but, they were in fact not evacuated until 1939, when the
Nationalists were moving into Catalonia. Initially Picasso
had intended to show the paintings at a second Paris World's
Fair, but this project was cancelled; they were finally
exhibited in Geneva in the summer of 1939.12

In response to Madrid's bombing and occupation, Picasso
wrote a poem entitled Dream and Lie of Fpanco (Sueno y
Mentira de Franco) accompanied by an 18 panel series of
etchings and acquatints, with the same name (figs. 1, 2).
The two plates, in comic strip format and style, depict
Franco as a repulsive creature representing evil caught up

in different situations, either comical, horrible or

ll

grotesque. Q;gnn_nn§_§ig_pf_§nnngg, both poem and etchings
were, until then, Picasso's most direct expression of his
views about the Spanish civil war and his abhorrence towards
Franco and the Insurgents. The etchings were executed
between January 8 and 9 of 1937, with the exception of the
last 4 panels of the second plate that were finished and
added later in June. This etching suite as well as a
painting called WW

.;; ,. , .', . ,- g.. , ~. g - - de_-g--_s -‘ 1‘
yizgin, 1937-38 (fig. 3), are "the only two works by Picasso
that can be considered true propagandist art,"13 as they go
straight to the point and truly grasp a political concept.

Even though Picasso was already involved with the
Republican cause, when asked for his contribution to the
Spanish Pavilion, he still remained reluctant and answered
that he did not know if he could do such a painting. On the
one hand, Picasso had never been commissioned to paint a
specific picture and besides he always felt, as Herschel B.
Chipp points out, in his book Eigasso's Guernica (1988),
adversity towards "polemic painting and political dogmas."14
On the occasions when the artist executed commissioned

works, his artistic freedom and subject matter had been
respected and never questioned. For example, in the curtain
and set for the Ballet Engngg of 1917, the theme was one
which Picasso was familiar with: it depicted a backstage

circus scene. The commission for the Spanish Pavilion

12
however, represented a much more serious task: Picasso had
to work out an inspiring painting for the Spanish cause, but
without jeopardizing his artistic freedom.

The indiscriminate bombing of the small civilian Basque
town, Guernica, on April 26 1937, was the source of
inspiration for Picasso's most politically charged and
impacting painting of his entire artistic career. By this
date the artist had no particular project in mind for the
commission but stunned by the tragic news about Guernica, he
immediately started to work concentrating on this
devastating event.

The history surrounding the bombing of Guernica is one
that invokes horror and disbelief. The real facts were
hidden for quite some time and even at one point it has been
denied that such events ever took place.15

With the outbreak of the civil war, Nazi Germany felt
threatened by the growing Russian influence in Spain and
considered that intervention would be in their own best
interest. At the same time, they saw the opportunity of
testing their newly equipped air force under wartime
conditions. Almost immediately after the uprising, German
bomber fighters with their pilots wearing Spanish uniforms,
began to arrive. This German outfit was known as the Condor
ngign: they were the ones who aided the Insurgents in the
bombing of Madrid that November.16 The main German objective

was to occupy the major Spanish ports before they fell into

13
Russian hands. Bilbao, the Basque capital located in the
north on the Bay of Biscay, was extremely important to them
since it was Spain's most important mining, industrial and
shipbuilding center, and geographically it was closer to
Germany than any of the other important ports, such as
Cadiz, located in the south. Guernica, with a population of
7,000 and found halfway between San Sebastian and the
capital Bilbao, became a military target for the Condor
Legion as a bridge over the tiny Mundaca river, located in
the northern edge of town, was the only escape route
available for fleeing Loyalist Basque troops who had been
forced out of the mountains by the enemy and were then
heading towards Bilbao.

The bombing of Guernica, the most ancient town for the
Basques and center of their cultural tradition, occured, on
a market day, at 4:30 pm. and ended at 7:45 p.m. Seventy
percent of the town was destroyed and hundreds of civilians
were killed. Nearly 3,000 pounds of bombs were dropped on
this small Spanish village.17

According to recent historical research,18 Franco had no
direct participation in the planning of the bombing of the
town. In fact he found out about it the following day. It is
believed that Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen,
chief of staff and commander of all German air force
personnel in Spain, commanded the attack with direct orders

from Berlin. On the other hand, General Werner von Blomberg,

14

the then minister of war, claimed he was never notified.
Still other sources maintain that it was a decision made
exclusively by Richthofen,19 who was eager to try out the
new bombers and to stop the Loyalists from advancing into
Bilbao.
The Press and Guegnica

The news of the attack and burning of Guernica reached
Bilbao (located some 30 kilometers away) at approximately 10
p.m. on the night of April 26. There were four foreign
professional correspondents, three English and one

Belgian.20 They were: George L. Steer from the Times

(London), Noel Monks of the Daily Express, Christopher Holme
of Bgnpezs News Aggngy and Mathieu Corman of the Parisian

daily Qg_§gi;. They were the first to arrive at Guernica and
witness the aftermath of the bombing. The first most
accurate and impartial account appeared in the Iingg on
April 28 by Steer, who wrote especially about the tactics
used by the planes and how and where they dropped their
bombs.21 However, the very first news that reached Paris was
in a broadcast by Radio Bilbao the evening following the
attack.22 In this transmission, the Basque President accused
the Condor Legion, that under direct orders of Franco, as
responsible for the bombing. Immediately those radio
networks controlled by the Nationalists denied such attacks
and the German PEP news agency emphatically repudiated any

German participation whatsoever and even came up with the

15

outrageous explanation that the Basques themselves had
destroyed their town as propaganda to obtain international
support. The then recently founded Paris afternoon daily Pg
Spin was the first to report about the events to the French
public. Although appeared on the evening of April 27 it was
dated April 28. It was a brief report but the correspondent
described the event as "the most horrible bombardment of the
war."23 It was accompanied by a photograph of dead women and
children. This evening paper had been founded a month
earlier and its editor was Picasso's closest friend the poet
and member of the French communist party, Louis Aragon,
hence, the paper was definitely a supporter of the
Republican cause.24 Nonetheless, the great majority of
French newspapers gave contradictory accounts of the
bombing, most of which favored the Nationalist Insurgents
and denying any German or Italian intervention. In general
the French press made no effort of presenting a balanced
account of the controversies surrounding the Spanish Civil
War. This attitude was mainly due to the fear of a German
and Italian attack towards France.25

It is observed that the journalistic display26 concerning
Guernica is one that can be paralleled to that of the Balkan
Wars in 1912-13 (see chapter 3). Even though the
circumstances are quite different, the press in both
instances gave a sensationalist coverage of both wars and

constantly stated the threat of a possible Pan-European war

16
creating much controversy and uneasiness throughout the
continent.

During the Guernica coverage the newspapers most read by
Picasso were: Eignng, a conservative paper, which printed
sporadic accounts of the war, on its back pages, with no
definite editorial position regarding the Spanish Civil War:
Lg_lgnznnl, the same paper used by the artist for his
collages of 1912-14, very popular and widely circulated and
well known for its art reviews, which however was pro-
Franco. Le Journal only published the denials of German
intervention and disregarded the bombing altogether; 9;
Spin, mentioned earlier; L'Hnmanitgz the French Communist
paper, which was the only truly committed newspaper that
openly denounced the atrocity against Guernica and the only
one that kept the issue alive throughout the month of May.
This paper also published the horrifying eyewitness account
of the Basque priest Father Alberto de Onaindia, who was
able to escape from the town on a road crowded by refugees
but was, nonetheless, indiscriminately bombarded and fired
upon by the Condor Legion's low-flying fighter planes.27

As had been the case in 1912-13, Picasso, was, once again
in a politically controversial atmosphere dealing with the
tragic events of a war. But this time the war has a direct
impact on him: it is taking place in his native country. In
the making of El Gnernica, the importance of the press

reemerges as Picasso is inspired by its powerful directness

l7
and impacting photojournalism.
a: sc ' t'o

The bombing of Guernica became the most shocking and
criticized single act of aggression in history, as it was
the first case in which modern "total war" was used against
a defenseless population. As the press coverage concerning
Guernica expanded, eliciting differences in political
attitudes and positions among the various French newspapers,
Picasso, nonetheless, in following the news very carefully,
only believed the accounts given by those papers who
defended the Republican cause (e.g. L'Humanité, Ce Soir, Le
Populaire).28 Not until April 30, that is, four days after
the attack, photographs of the ruined town were published
for the first time.29 These visual accounts of Guernica's
tragedy and the controversy surrounding the incident, are
probably what motivated Picasso specifically to begin work
on the painting, for he started with great energy and
enthusiasm the following day: on May 1 (fig. 4).

In ten days Picasso drew twenty-one sketches. The first
five sketches are drawn over blue paper. This could well
have been a coincidence or Picasso might have intentionally
used blue to associate the Guernica events with his Blue
Period.30 Nevertheless, the blue colored paper disappears
after the eighth sketch, but the color blue does not vanish
altogether. Even though the final painting has a monochrome

quality, the colors black, white and various shades of gray,

18
which vary from neutral tints to dark bluish grays and
purples to brownish grays, are used and dominate the entire
picture.

The initial drawings are very sketchy and, as intended by
the artist, they do not depict a war scene. Surprisingly,
the final composition of El_§n§1nign includes more of the
basic elements used in Picasso's first preliminary drawing,
than any other subsequent sketches. The main characters,
such as the woman with the lamp, the bull, a bird, the
fallen bodies, a wounded horse are immediately used by
Picasso. In reference to this, Oppler in Picnsso's Guernica
(1988), quotes an interesting observation the artist had
made earlier in 1935: "basically a picture does not
change... the first "vision" remains almost intact..."31 In
this initial drawing each of the figures is located in its
final place as well. The woman is pushing the lamp out of
the window: the bull is in the same place as in the final
painting, so, too, the bird perched on the bull, although in
the finished work it will stand on a table.

Picasso made a total of five sketches on this first day
of work. In the second of these sketches, the paper is
divided into two different compositions: at the top of the
paper the same compositional characteristics, as found in
the first sketch, can be detected with the difference that
the bull is now facing the woman of the lamp. At the bottom

part of the sheet, the bull is clarified together with its

19
rider: a tiny winged horse. Here the artist has introduced
an allegorical figure: Pegasus, the winged horse of the
poets (figs. 5, 6).32 It is important to note that from its
very inception, the preparatory sketches for Pl_§ng;nign
were carefully recorded by Picasso. In fact, early in 1935
during an interview with Christian Zervos, the artist
remarked about his desire to have "the metamorphoses of a
picture" recorded photographically. He also added that "in
this way one might perhaps understand the mental processes
leading to the embodiment of the artist's dream."33 In the
case of El_§ng;nign it was the first time that an artist
thought about systematically preserving all the stages of a
painting, and cataloging them, before actually starting on
the final work.34 While working on the canvas, Dora Maar,
Picasso's close companion at this time, photographed the
different stages of his work, from the first sketches to the
conclusion of the painting. The canvas was photographed
seven times in all. Through these pictures we can closely
follow the evolution of the making of Guernica.

At the end of his first day of work, Picasso made a
composition study in pencil on gessoed wood (25 1/2" X 21
1/8"),(fig. 7) where he presents the familiar figures
introduced in the first drawing. This time the bull
dominates the picture and the horse is in a diagonal
position with body and head pointing in the same direction.

The small winged horse is now away from the bull and is

20
emerging from a side wound of the horse. There is a dead
warrior with classical helmet intertwined with the feet of
the horse and the bull. At a distance, the woman holding a
lamp leans out from a window.

The next day on May 2, Picasso executed a series of five
drawings, three of them concentrating on the horse, and
again a summarized drawing on gesso (fig. 8). The last
sketch, however, is undated but most likely to have been
done in early May.35 Picasso rested for five days and
resumed work the following weekend making two drawings on
May 8; three on May 9; five on May 10. Several of these
sketches are studies of a mother fleeing with her dead
child, very possibly affected and influenced by the news
reports about Spanish refugees reaching France. L'flumanité
editor Paul Valliant-Couturier had traveled to the north of
Spain to report on the Basque campaign and rescue
operations. A fund was set up to collect money for the
victims and Picasso alone contributed 400,000 francs.36

A second compositional study executed on May 9 becomes,
at this point, the most complex and horrifying of all. This
drawing especially recalls the graphic accounts of Father
Alberto de Onaindia as he described the bombing of the town
to the reporter of L'finmanité published on May 5.37 In the
composition the ground is full of dismembered bodies under a
sprawling horse. Behind a wheel cart stands a bull with wide

opened eyes and looking out into the distance as if foreign

21
to his surroundings; the woman with the lamp still in the
same position is now lighting the darkened setting. Flames
of fire in the background rise up from the buildings: a
mother holding a child in her arms crawls trying to escape
the flames: a few arms with clenched fists, raised in the
anti-Fascist and Loyalist salute, are seen coming out of
windows as in symbolic protest (fig. 9).

On May 11 Picasso outlined the first images on the canvas
prepared exclusively for the painting. Due to its size
(11'6" by 25'6"), Dora Maar specifically rented a studio on
the rue des Grandes-Augustins big enough for Picasso to work
on the commissioned mural. From here on the different
"states" of the painting were photographed by Dora.
Unfortunately, of these pictures only the first one taken is
dated: all the preparatory drawings made during the making
of the painting (a total of 25), nonetheless, are
meticulously dated and preserved.

In the first state of the painting (fig. 10), Picasso
clarifies the figures and practically establishes the
architectural background with the roof and windows of the
burning house. The canvas is divided with vertical and
diagonal lines. At the extreme right emerges a woman in
flames: on the left side of the canvas is the fleeing woman
with her dead child: the horse, with turned down neck,
remains in the center of the composition with the dead

warrior at his feet who in turn tightly holds a broken sword

22
in his left hand; in between the burning woman and the horse
is a woman lying across the foreground with a dead bird by
her arm and a flower beside her head; a woman beside her
lunges forward with her head thrust out in terror. The bull
still remains in his original position but he is now looking
out to the left again detached from the events. The clenched
fists of the composition of May 9 have disappeared and are
now substituted by one arm in Loyalist salute placed in the
center of the picture.

In state two, the clenched hand is replaced by a clenched
fist holding twigs of what seems to be wheat grain that is
stretched upwards in a dominant position and against a
sunflower sun. The horse has a clear open wound on its back
and the dead soldier's arm with hand holding the broken
sword is now detached from the body (fig. 11).

Important changes occur in state three. The raised fist
full of grain is removed and the sun is flattened into an
eclipse. The soldier's body is now reoriented with head
facing the floor. The horse is restructured with head rising
towards the left. The breasts of the women are defined; the
flames are reduced.

In state four, Picasso concentrates on the bull and
horse. The bull now faces the scene, yet his face is turned
away. The head of the horse is lifted and from his open
mouth comes out a pointed tongue which helps emphasize his

agony and suffering as a spear pierces his body. In this

23

state Picasso experiments with collage elements. For the
running woman figure, he places a textured cloth, resembling
a scarf, instead of hair, wallpaper for her dress and the
tears running down her cheeks are painted in red (fig. 12).

In the fifth state Picasso concentrates on the horse and
the burning woman now depicted as falling from a building
engulfed in flames.

Collage reappears in the sixth state. The falling woman
is given a checkered dress and the grieving mother a
wallpapered dress. By the seventh and last state, which has
been dated June 3 and 4, Picasso has removed the collage
elements. The soldier's head is now looking upwards and
given a sculptural quality: the floor is patterned into a
grid to resemble the tiles of an outside courtyard giving
depth to the painting. A shrieking bird is outlined and
placed on a table beside the bull. The eclipsed flattened
sun is replaced by an electric bulb sending off rays of
light. He introduced a door with a doorknob at the far
right, and dresses the grieving mother with a striped skirt.
Lastly, Picasso gave texture to the horse's hide giving it
the appeareance of hair as to bring out the body from the
rest of the figures. This textured horse may also suggest
newsprint.38

The exact date of the completion of El Guernica is
unknown. If it is assumed that Picasso worked on the mural

as long as he made sketches for it, then, we can conclude

24

that it was finished between June 3 and 4, that is, when his
last drawings related to the painting are dated.39

In the early thirties, Picasso executed many drawings and
prints depicting the bull or Minotaur as representing his
alter ego. These series are epitomized in 1935 with his
large, mystifying etching Mingpnnpgnngny (fig. 13).
Allusions of this print's composition in §l_§n§;nign have
long been recognized. The original drawing on the metal
plate has a great resemblance to the painting. This suggests
that Minppnnnomacny had such an impact on Picasso's psyche
that unconsciously he was influenced by its composition when
making Pl Gue;nicn.4° The characters in both works match.
The bison-headed Minotaur corresponds to Guernica's bull;
both wounded horses share the same positions and poses; the
flower-child with candle suggests the woman with the lamp,
and the bearded man on the ladder corresponds to the falling
woman. Concerning the etching, many interpretations have
been made ranging from the most personal, dealing with
Picasso's hidden anxieties and private life, to his own
interpretations of Mediterranean mythologies and "Jungian
models of the collective unconscious."41

Seen in a different context, the animals of El Guernica,
are considered as having ambiguous symbolic meanings. From a
naturalistic point of view, and as mentioned earlier, they

could well be farm animals since the town was an

25
agricultural center and it was a market day when the bombing
occurred. In addition to this, critics have identified the
bull and horse with the Spanish ggrzigg (bullfight)
associating the two opposing actors of the bullfight with
the two main opponents of the civil war.42 And when asked
about the symbolism behind the bull and the horse, Picasso
said: "the bull there represents brutality, the horse the
people."43 When interviewed in 1945 by New Masses, Seckler,
his interviewer, suggested if the bull was a symbol of
Franco and fascist brutality, Picasso emphatically replied:
"no, the bull is not fascism, but it is brutality and

darkness."44

Based on the etching plates of Dream gng Lig of Ppnnco,
other critics interpret the bull of El_§ng;nign in a

completely different manner. In one plate the bull
ferociously attacks the caricatured Franco and in another,
as it is haloed in sun rays, it confronts a despicable
creature representing Franco and by the end of the series,
the bull manages to survive the catastrophes of the war
depicted in the final scenes. The bull in this respect, is
"the symbol of the enduring force of life, the only power
capable of eternal survival," an emblem of the very soul of
Spain.45

(:The horse also embodies several meanings. If associated
with its role in the bullfight as the creature in charge of

inflicting pain on the bull, the horse can well be

26
interpreted as the symbol of Franco's forces. However, for
Picasso, the horse conveys positive connotations. In Pl
Gngznign the horse clearly embodies suffering and the
spectator is compelled to sympathize with its agony. It
becomes a symbol of "the universal victim."46
Picasso has always been well known for his paradoxical

views when explaining about his own work. When finally asked
to resolve the conflicting interpretations about his animal
symbolism he stated:

But this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse.

There's a sort of bird, too, a chicken, or a pigeon, I

don't remember now exactly what it is, on a table. And

this chicken is a chicken. Sure they're symbols. But it

isn't up to the painter to create symbols: otherwise,

it would be better if he wrote them out in so many

words instead of painting them. The public who look at

the picture must see in the horse and in the bull

symbols which they interpret as they understand them.

There are some animals. These are animals, massacred

animals. That's all, so far as I'm concerned. It's up

to the public to see what it wants to see.47

The three women, depicted in the painting, with their

dramatic gestures, heads and arms raised in agony and mouths
opened wide, have been interpreted as making reference to
important historical works of art. The action and gestures
of the woman carrying her dead child has been closely
related to those found in the works by Guido Reni and
Nicolas Poussin's Massagzg pf the Innogents, ca. 1611 and
1628-29 respectively (figs. 14, 15), where the mouth wide
open gesticulating a scream, and head violently thrown back

in anguish are common traits.48 The running woman on the

right side of the painting and the woman falling in flames

27
are also protagonists in these classical works of art where
women are portrayed in the most extreme human suffering.
Other images, mentioned by critics, of having direct
references with El Guepniee, just to mention a few, are:
Peter Paul Rubens', Ine Horrons of Wan, ca. 1637, it has
been claimed that this painting was the eminent inspiration
for Guernica:49 Eugene Delacroix, Messeepe at Seio, 1824;
Jacques Louis David, Battle of pne Sabines and Romans, 1799;
etc.

[:ihe woman with the lamp however, involves an entire
different symbolic interpretation. As she thrusts the lamp
out of the window, she gives light to the tragic scene as to
"enlighten the world." Comparing her to a Greek chorus,

Oppler sees her, as "witness and commentator."50 In Pierre

Paul Prud'hon'S. W
Crime, 1808, she is Nemesis, the Greek Goddess of vengeance,
or she is La nepseillaise, in Francois Rude, Departure of
pne Volunpeers, 1792, leading the people into battle urging
volunteers to participate in the revolution.51

\:The fallen warrior transformed into a broken statue,
evokes the classical fragments and portrait busts that
Picasso had painted into his early still lifes.52 It could
well be interpreted as the end of the academic classical
tradition or even as the collapse of civilization.5

In El_§nepnige, the animal and human figures are

combinations of both fact and symbol. The symbols were not

28

invented especially for this painting but had existed and
were slowly maturing in the artist's mind in previous years.
Whereas in the past, they had expressed very personal
tragedies, with El_§nepniee, Picasso was able to place them
in a higher level and use them to express his personal
reaction to a universal human tragedy.54

The official opening of the World Fair of Paris was
postponed from May 1 to May 24 as the result of massive
demonstrations and riots. The principal theme of the Fair
was to exalt the many advances in modern technology and
science, thus, it was officially called the Exposition
'1 - 11 °.,. - q-- a _ - - qa'eLts oags ,. vie moder e.
The influence of the architect Le Corbusier was reflected in
the different structures of the pavilions and huge murals
were painted with themes related to the progresses made in
industry. Many murals were also designed by artists who by
using their semi-abstract styles, offsprings of Cubism,
conveyed likenesses with technological and industrial
products.55 In contrast, however, the Spanish Pavilion,
opened seven weeks late, was "devoted to the suffering and
struggles of the Spanish people."56 Except for five female
sculptures made by Picasso, all the art in this pavilion was
related to the Republican cause. At the entrance wall was Pl '
Guerniea and facing the painting, on the opposite wall was a
large photomural of the Andalusian poet Federico Garcia

Lorca (fig. 16),’assassinated at the beginning of the war,

29
and who came to represent the martyr of the Spanish left.
Other artists of great significance who collaborated with
the Spanish pavilion were: Alberto Sanchez, with a 39 foot
quasi-abstract wooden column entitled Ine_§penien_Peeple
EQII2H.é_fl§1_Ln§§_L§QQ§_£Q_§_§£§£; Julio Gonzalez, with a
life-size sculpture of a woman holding a child made in sheet
iron called Peeeenp_flgnen_pfnnenpee;rep (fig. 17); Alexander
Calder, with his famous circular fountain mobile Spanish
MSIQEI¥_§IQE_ALEQQEE: Joan Miro and his mural painting Pi
Segegg; (The Reaper); and documentary films on the war, such
as Megnig '36 by Luis Bunuel, Spenish Earpn by Joris Ivens
and Ernest Hemingway and The Heant of Spain by Paul Strand
that were shown almost continuous in an open-air auditorium
opposite the entrance to the pavilion. In addition to the
art works, there were shocking photomurals on the life of
the Spanish people during the war and of their dispair,
giving the spectators a glimpse of the nightmarish reality
of Spain.
El Quegnica and its link to Picasse's Collage Period of
ing-i4.

It is found that in the 1912-14 Collages, Picasso
incorporated very specific newspaper clippings to stress the
devastating events of a major regional war. Not only did the '
massive journalistic display given to such conflict
influence the artist to deal with this subject matter but

the heated debates and predictions about its consequences

30
leading to a major world war were instrumental as well.
Newspapers in this respect (especially Le_Jgnnnel)
represented for Picasso tools of work as well as sources of
inspiration. Twenty five years later Picasso is caught in a
very similar situation as he is once again confronted by a
major tragic event. This time, however, the disastruous
incident takes place in his native country and he is
compelled to take on a much more active role. In this
occasion as well, the exploitative nature of the press is so
significant that Picasso is drawn again towards its
sensationalism and display as incentives for his creative
force.

As with the early collages the influence of the media,
especially the press, is recognized and emphasized in El
Qnepniee. Comparing the newspaper reports and the
photojournalism of the events with many of the graphic
elements used by the artist in the mural painting, we see
there is a definite connection. Shocking headlines such as:
"THE MOST HORRIBLE BOMBARDMENT SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE
WAR IN SPAIN," and "ONLY FIVE HOUSES LEFT STANDING IN
GUERNICA! AND MOLA DECLARES HE WILL RAZE BILBAOl,"
accompanied by tragic close-up pictures of dead women and
children, or survivors fleeing the burning town in
desperation, were all sources of inspiration for Picasso. In
the finished painting, the figures of the grieving woman

with her dead child in her arms, the falling woman in flames

31
with arms raised in a gesture of agony, another woman
wounded in the leg trying to run away from the chaos, are
associated with both the chilling accounts of Father
Onaindia and with the striking newspaper photographs Picasso
was so much moved by. The wounded horse, the presence of the
bull, and the shrieking bird, make reference to the fact
that the bombing took place on a market day. Furthermore,
Picasso emphasized his journalistic source by painting Pl
Guepniee in black and white imitating those colors of
newspaper print. Even the ordered lines imitating hair on
the horse's hide, suggest lines of type-"the horse as a
public declaration in print, the offshoot of early uses of
newspaper in collage."57 In this context, El Guernica can be
seen as a gigantic black and white photomontage summarizing
the shocking destruction of a small town.

Stylistically, Pl Guernica is a combination of Cubism,
analytical and synthetic, of Collage, Surrealism and
Expressionism. Even the Blue Period can be detected, at
first, through his use of bluish tones in the overall
painting and secondly through the emotionally charged
figures. How contradictory these styles might seem, Picasso,
nonetheless, manages to bring them together to create a
powerful statement. The painting has a collage-like
characteristic as if the forms were cut up to be combined
creating the final composition. The figures might seem

overlapping each other, all in disorderly confusion, but,

32
after studying the picture with care, it becomes a unified
and solid composition.

Besides amalgamating five different artistic styles in
one painting, Picasso linked various themes from his past
creating a diverse imagery full of symbolisms. William
Rubin, in his book Dade and Surrealist Art (1969), most
effectively encapsulated this aspect of the painting as he
noted: "in [Guernica's] iconography the reverberations of
the three "myths" that preoccupied Picasso throughout the
period when he was close to Surrealism are resolved into a
single harmonious triad," these three myths, as he
continued, are "those of the Minotaur, the Crucifixion and
the Bullfight: these represent respectively the classical
Mediterranean heritage, the Christian heritage, and the
Spanish national heritage..."58

Much as in the 1912-14 Collages, in El Guernica there
exists an array of dualities and ambiguities: an electric
light bulb referring to day and night, interior
illumination, and exterior light that imply a specific time
span. The viewer can also find himself looking into a room,
but then finds it to be an open plaza. The figures are in
frontal or profile and the directional lines of the mural
are filled with horizontals and verticals.

As discussed later on, Picasso's anarchist associations
during his Barcelona and Paris years prior to World War I

were pivotal for his political and artistic formation.

33

Although the outbreak of the war politically split the
anarchist movement, its spirit continued to affect Picasso.
In the early 1920's when the artist met Andre Breton, the
founder of the Surrealist movement and member of the French
Communist Party, Picasso once again found himself surrounded
by a very politicized group of friends. By this time
anarchism had largely been replaced by Soviet Communism, an
ideology immediately embraced by the great majority of
anarchist militants and sympathizers. Among the artist's
closest friends who were politically committed to the
Communist Party were the poet Paul Eluard and Picasso's
mistress Dora Maar. Eventually Picasso would become more
involved with the Party as he sided with the Republican
cause during his country's civil war. But not until 1944,
after the end of World War II did he officially become a
member of the French Communist Party.59

The intense political debates so much in the order of the
day during the pre-war period of 1912-14 were not so
different to the ones Picasso found himself involved during
the outbreak of the Spanish civil war. While the former was
exteriorized through Collages, Picasso immortalized the

latter with the mural painting El Guernica.

CHAPTER 2
ANARCHISM: FROM BARCELONA TO PARIS
'c s a ce

To fully understand Pablo Picasso's El_§nenniee and the
painting's connection with the artist's collage period of
1912-14, it is essential to reach back into his early
career, as the focus of the previous chapter can not stand
alone to grasp the relationships between both artistic
creations.

The most significant impressionable years of the artist's
life were those he spent in Barcelona from the age of
fourteen to the age of twenty-three (1895-1904). During this
period Barcelona had become the cultural center of the
Catalan Renaissance as well as "the most artistically active
city in Spain, the cradle of its avant-garde."60

The cultural evolution of Catalonia at this time is
linked to its socio-economic growth. The province grew at
such a rapid pace from 1870 to 1890 that it became Spain's
most industrialized and wealthiest region. At the same time,
Catalonia experienced a new sharpened awareness of its
cultural heritage, and this sense of revival was given
artistic expression.61

In its past history the province of Catalonia had already

formed many links with northern Europe, and thus has never

34

35

been considered an organic part of Spain. Up to the
thirteenth century it had belonged to the advanced Langue
d'Oc civilization of southern France and northern Italy.
Even the Catalan language is more similar to Provencal than
to Spanish although both have Latin roots. Separated from
France during the Crusades against the Albigensian heresy,62
and later cut off from Constantinople because of the Turkish
conquest, Catalonia was forced to turn away from the north
and look toward the Iberian Peninsula.63 From then on
Catalonia has been well known for its separatist and
regionalist attitudes as well as for its resistance to
Castilian domination, a sentiment that has persisted to the
present.64

The sudden economic growth of the last quarter of the
nineteenth century refurbished the sentiment for
"Catalanismo," that is, the revival of everything purely
Catalan--music, literature, art, folk, language, etc. The
founding of universities, art academies, and specialized
schools throughout the region contributed to a brighter
future of regional developments which in turn inspired the
advancement and growth in the arts.65 Prosperity and wealth
also created a whole new class of a new rich bourgeois who
prided themselves on their Catalan heritage and objected to
making money for a nation which they considered backward and
weak. This "Catalanismo" was to influence their political

and economic thinking as well as the art and literature of

36
the region.

The art of "Catalanismo" was especially responsive to the
European modern movement in general, following its tendency
to rebel against predominant academic traditions. Its main
goal was to satisfy the demands of a society and culture
that was maturing and growing at great speed. Radical
changes in the arts were needed and, as they were
introduced, the Catalan Renaissance emerged leading to the
flourishing of what is called "Modernismo."66

The Catalan Renaissance needed an artistic style with
which to identify, and its artists sought to find it
through their own cultural heritage. But the desire to be
progressive and modern, and not wanting to be entirely
rural, encouraged the acceptance of foreign trends.
Therefore, Modernismo appeared within the rebirth of
Catalonian art as a movement characterized for its
ecclecticism. In sum, Cervera defines Modernismo as:

The summation of a series of foreign trends which were
made to serve a point of view deemed appropriate to
Catalonia. It was an intra-cultural synthesis, an
attempt to reconcile or unite under one roof opposing?
practices and princ1ples, that roof was Catalanismo.

When young Picasso moved to Barcelona in 1895, Modernismo
was very well established and the Catalan artists Santiago
Rusinol, Ramon Casas, Isidro Nonell, Dionisio Baixeras, Joan -
Llimona, Alejandro de Riquer, and Adria Gual68 dominated the

Barcelona art scene. As a young artist, Picasso was very

much influenced by the movement and its painters and he

37

continuously explored all aspects of it, trying to find a
unique style of his own. In such works as Pi;ep_§ennnnipn
(1896), and Sc'en e and Cha it , (1897) (fig. 18), we find
academic studies whose importance lies in their reflection
of Picasso's artistic skills at the young age of fifteen. As
for their style, it is obvious that he was influenced by
Joan Llimona, whose work was considered the most
representative of Catalanismo art at that time69 The
Modernista influence on Picasso can also be detected during
his first important exhibition held at Els Quatre Gats Cafe
in early February of 1900. Jaume Sabartés, one of Picasso's
closest friends and biographers, recalled that one of the
strongest motives for the show was to rival the exclusive
reputation of Ramon Casas as a portraitist at the peak of
his artistic career. Picasso showed charcoal portraits of
his friends, pastel sketches and three oil paintings, done
with heavy contour outlines and lightly sketched details
that were stylistically influenced by those of Casas.7o

Els Quatre Gats Cafe was the pezpnlie place (cafe-meeting
place) of the avant-garde in Barcelona and was crucial to
the Modernista movement. Inaugurated on June 12, 1897 71 the
eezyegenie-pevenna-nostel (beer hall-tavern-inn), was
located on the first floor of a building that had a mixture
of late Catalan Gothic architecture combined with native
Catalonian ironwork decorations.72 Els Quatre Gats, meaning

"The Four Cats," is a colloquial Catalan expression for

Ob

.1

a...

38
"only a few people."73 The originators of the cafe were the
artists Pere Romeu, Santiago Rusinol, Ramon Casas and Miguel
Utrillo who considered themselves "the four cats." But the
true source of its name comes from the desire of a Barcelona
counterpart of the celebrated Parisian cafe Le_gnep_Nei;,
(The Black Cat), whose owner had died recently, and where
the four artists had shared very pleasant experiences while
living in Paris. Their intentions were also to have a place
for pegpnliee, the Spanish name for an informal social
gathering where intelectuals and the like discussed art and
politics.

The discussions in Els Quatre Gats were mainly centered
around newspapers, journal articles and periodicals that the
cafe received locally and from abroad. Many of these dealt
with interesting accounts of the European avant-garde,
political theory and aesthetics. Curious about the "new"
trends in art and politics, Picasso and his friends became
avid readers of these publications.

From a very early age, Picasso showed his fascination for
newspapers. At twelve, when the family moved from Malaga,
his birth place, to Corunna, the young Pablo produced his
own newsletter in the fall of 1893, to send back to his
extended family in Malaga. He called it Azul y Blaneo (Blue
and White) after the most popular Spanish weekly paper (with
the same name) and "was full of drawings and little writing

from P. Ruiz Picasso, el director, about life in Corunna."

39

There was even a section reserved for advertisements, with
one advertisement paid by his loyal supporter, his father
Don Jose:"Wanted to Purchase: Thoroughbred Pigeons. Address,
14 Payo Gomez Street, 2nd floor."74

Picasso's association with Els Quatre Gats began in
1898,75 although he had already met some of the younger
group members such as the artist Manuel Pallares, when he
moved to Barcelona with his family in 1895. His contact with
the modernista group associated with the cafe is considered
to have had a great impact on his emotional development and
in his formation as an artist. At this early age, Picasso
found enormous support among the older established
generation of painters, who gave him confidence in his
artistic experimentation. He was specially impressed by
Casas, Rusinol and Nonell, from whom we can detect a direct
influence in style and in subject matter, in his work of
this period (figs. 19, 20). Furthermore, later in life,
Picasso would return to many of the themes that originated
during his Barcelona period, a clear indication of his
indebtness to the "modernista" movement and their ideas.
During this time the young Picasso produced a large body of
work which includes several advertisements for Els Quatre
Gats and menu covers as well as caricatures and drawings for ‘
avant-garde art journals (figs. 21, 22).

Political awareness and participation characterizes the

"modernista" movement. A great majority, if not all, of the

40
artists were sympathizers or active members of the anarchist
movement of Barcelona, which at this time had become quite
strong.

Anarchism was introduced in Spain in 1868, by the Italian
Guiseppe Fanelli, who was sent by the Russian active
revolutionary and organizer of the movement, Mikhail
Bakunin. There is no simple explanation of why this movement
achieved such great acceptance in Spain, more than anywhere
else in Europe. As James Joll states in his book Tne
Anezeniepe (1964), the Spanish temperament responded to the
extremist doctrines of the movement and because "a
population used to centuries of religious fanaticism had no
problems accepting a fanaticism of another kind."75 The
reasons, however, are much more complex. Even though Fanelli
arrived in Spain at the moment of the proclamation of the
First Republic--a period of disorder and political chaos,
which abetted the wide acceptance of anarchism--other
factors should be taken in consideration: a backward country
with an unstable government, the growing gap between the
rich and poor, a peasantry that was socially and
economically neglected, that led to a history of frequent
peasant revolts, an oppressed working class, and a middle
class that was denied participation in government. These and -
many other determinants made it favorable for a strong
anarchist movement in Spain.77

In popular thought, anarchism is associated with chaos,

41

rebellion, terrorism, and insurgency. In the pure historical
socio-political context however, it is a doctrine which
basically emerged from the most libertarian ideals. Since
its starting point is society itself, "anarchism" is
concerned with the vision of man in relation to his society.
It criticizes the existing society, and it anticipates an
aspiring future one. Anarchism's aim is always social
change, and its means is always social rebellion, no matter
what kind.78 The word "anarchist" itself derives from the
greek "anarchos," meaning without head or chief, and
"anarchism," by way of "anarchia," means "the condition of a
people without a government."79 The two terms were first
used in a derogatory way during the French Revolution to
denote opposition to a rival party or parties. It is
believed that the Girondin Brissot used the term anarchist
for the first time in 1793, against a group known as the
"Enrages" which he strongly opposed. Brissot found it
necessary to define "anarchist," especially because his
condemnation towards the Enrages was so determined:

Laws that are not carried into effect, authorities

without force and despised, crime unpunished, property

attacked, the safety of the individual violated, the

morality of the people corrupted, no constitution, no

government, no justice, these are the features of

anarchy.

In 1840, the Frenchman Pierre Joseph Proudhon, was the

first to proudly proclaim himself to be an anarchist in his

famous book "What is Property?" in which he gave his own

question the answer: "Property is theft." Here he

42
legitimizes the term and uses it in a socially positive way.
Proudhon, a close friend of the painter Gustave Courbet,
from whom he developed a keen interest in art theory, never
sought followers and "denied any suggestion that he had
created a system of any kind."81 Even his immediate
followers preferred to Call themselves Mutualists, and not
until the later 1870's, with the division created in the
First International between the followers of Karl Marx and
Bakunin, did the latter start to call themselves Anarchists.
All the basic ideas of anarchism are developed in Proudhon's
writings. Patricia Leighten accurately summarizes Proudhon's
ideals as follows:
Anarchism is anti-authoritarian, anti-industrialist,
anti-militarist, anti-patriotic, anti-parliamentarian,
and against property and religion; it is pacifist and
internationalist; it embraces individual independence
and liberty, the social necessity and moral virtue of
work, and sees the future society in terms of small,
mutually supporting groups in relations of "natural"
interdependence.

Bakunin, mentioned above, and Peter Kropotkin, the great
thinker of the movement in the late nineteenth century,
rooted their ideology in Proudhon's ideas. By the 1860's
these ideas had developed not only among the French working-
class but throughout the rest of Europe, specially in Italy
and Spain.

The anarchist ideologists regarded the arts highly. The
importance given to individualism, the strong social aims,

and this interest in the arts attracted many avant-garde

writers and artists to the movement in the second half of

43

the nineteenth century. Among them we find Stephane
Mallarme, Guillaume Apollinaire, Alfred Jarry, Max Jacob,
Camille Pissarro, the young Picasso and Diego Rivera, the
Americans George Bellows and Robert Henri, just to name a
few, all of whom were socially-conscious anarchists and
therefore thought about art in anarchist terms. They
associated artistic freedom with anarchist ideas.83 Members
of the Symbolist movement were especially attracted to the
anarchist notion of individualism as an attack against
bourgeois society. When the anarchist movement declined,
many of these artists, Diego Rivera and Pablo Picasso
included, eventually found it easy to embrace Marxism.

Barcelona itself had become, by the 1890's, the most
politically active city in Spain. It was also the most
industrialized city in the Iberian peninsula. Most of its
workers came from the southern provinces of Spain,
especially Andalusia, as they fled from extreme poverty and
exploitation, but the working conditions offered in the big
city were unfortunately not much different from those these
workers had left behind. The average Barcelona factory
worker had very long working hours at near-subsistence
wages. He lived in the most inadequate conditions, without
sanitary facilities and adequate ventilation.84 As early as
the 1830's the labor movement in Barcelona had been quite
active. Several strikes had been organized and there was a

great demand for a workers' organization that would

44
represent the interests of the laborers. Not until 1865,
under the tolerant administration of a liberal government,
did these workers' organizations surface but only to be
supressed a year later with the fall of the liberals. There
existed a constant distrust towards the government with its
repressive political system, and, as the Church supported
the government, a strong anti-clerical sentiment prevailed
throughout Spain. It is no surprise that the Spanish workers
and peasants would be attracted to the anarchist ideals of a
harmonious life with perfect equality and no authoritarian
corruption. In Barcelona the growing popularity of
Catalonia's regional independence enhanced the inclination
towards anarchism.

Picasso's own circle of friends were anarchist
sympathizers or militants, and, besides, the whole city of
Barcelona was so politically-charged with an increasing
number of anarchist acts, mainly workers' strikes and
terrorist acts, that for the young Picasso it would have
been impossible to be indifferent to or unaware of these
incidents.

Els Quatre Gats cafe subscribed to the most important
avant-garde journals in Europe.85 Since aesthetic theory was
then included in such political writings, the works by
Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin were translated and
frequently read together with the writings of Tolstoy,

Wagner, and Nietzsche. These often appeared in Barcelona

45
newspapers and journals where they were avidly read by the
Catalan avant-garde, anarchists, and their sympathizers.
Between 1895 and 1913, the years Picasso lived and visited
Barcelona, eighteen anarchist periodicals86 were in
circulation and avidly read by a very politically-aware
public. Just to name a few: Ciencia Social (1895-1896);

'e Ana 'st (1896); Heelge_§ene;el (1901-1903): Tierra
¥_L12§I&§§ (1902'1913)3 L§_Ané£QEi§ (1905);.EL_B§2§lQ§
(1907-1908); Iie;;e_Lippe (1908): the anarchist newspaper Le
Vangnerdie, and the art journals Juvent t, Sn-Cut!, and
lfinyene which championed anarchist ideals. These periodicals
included translations of European and American anarchists:
among them the political writings of principally Proudhon,
Bakunin, and Kropotkin, together with Sebastian Fauré,
Giuseppe Fanelli, Octave Mirbeau, Emma Goldman, Emile
Vandervelde, Jean Grave, Alexander Herzen and Karl Marx.
Among writers and artists: Tolstoy, Zola, Gorky, Ibsen,
Nietzsche, Ruskin, Hauptmann, Courbet, Hugo, Chekov, Balzac,
Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Wagner and Mallarme. Spanish
writers also contributed to the vast anarchist literature:
among them we find those based in Madrid: Pio Baroja,
Azorin, Unamuno, Ruben Dario, Ramiro de Maetzu, Joaquin
Costa: and the Barcelona writers: Joan Maragall, Pompeu
Gener, Jaume Brossa, Alexandre Cortada, Fermin Salvoechia,

and others.87

The Catalan art journals of this period such as Luz

46

(1398): Hi§2221é_(1399‘1903), LQ_ILE§EEQ2122_§Q£QLQDQ (1383-
1903). La_Benazsnsa (1871-1905). La_Ilustacion_Iberiga
(1883-98), Ele_Qnep;e_Sepe (1899), Pel_§_Plene (successor to
Els Quatre Gats, 1899-1903), pren§3§_(1900-1906), QQLQLBDQ
Angiepiee (1900-1905): Setalonie (successor to L'Avenc,
1898-1900), and Pegme (successor to Pel & Ploma, 1904-1907)
included works by the above mentioned writers as well as
articles concerning avant-garde art and artists.88

In 1900 Pablo Picasso, accompanied by his painter friend
Carles Casagemas, visited Paris for the first time. His
interest in Paris had been aroused most likely by the
Universal Exhibition89 as well as by the French Art journals
he read devotedly at Els Quatre Gats. This visit lasted only
from October until Christmas, when he became homesick and
decided to return to Barcelona. But right after the
festivities of New Year, Picasso became weary and desiring
to be in touch with new avant-garde circles, decided to move
to Madrid. This time he went with his friend Francisco Soler
with whom he started his magazine Arte Seven, based on the
model of Pel_i_Plene, edited by the Catalans Miguel Utrillo
and Ramon Casas.90 In Madrid the young Picasso was in
contact with the famous literary group known as pne
gene:e§ien_e1_i2§i (los noventayochistas)91 which included
Pio Baroja, Miguel de Unamuno, Azorin (Jose Martinez Ruiz)
and Jose Ortega y Gasset. Ante Joven only lasted five

numbers but the magazine included, besides many

47
illustrations by Picasso, works by the important Barcelona
avant-garde artists such as Casas, Rusinol, Utrillo, Nonell,
and Raventos, advertisements for Qnep;e_§epe, Pel_i_Plgne,
other Catalan publications, and, together with Catalan
writers, Madrid-based authors like Pio Baroja and Unamuno
contributed articles. The importance of A;pe_ggyen lies in
the fact that being the only publication Picasso ever had
total control of was significantly inclined towards social
and political topics faithful to the anarchist ideology.92
Madrid did not change Picasso's political beliefs or views
considering that the ngyenpeyeeniepee were extremely
political and many of these writers were either anarchists
or socialists. The magazine published poems, articles with
political overtones, short stories, translations of the well
known European authors on art theory or philosophy and
drawings by avant-garde artists.

Perhaps the most influential intellectual at this time in
both the Madrid and Barcelona milieu was the German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (b.1844-d.1900). In 1899
Inne_Speke_zenepnepze had been translated and by 1905 all of
his writings were available in Spanish. Among the
npyenpeyeeniepee Nietzsche had a special appeal and was in
general considered "the spiritual leader of the Generation
of '98."93 Nietzsche was first introduced to Barcelona by
Pompeyo Gener. On the staff of the journal JuventnpI Gener

translated several Nietzschean publications and wrote

48

several articles about the philosopher, including Ange
Pienieieee on the occasion of Nietzsche's death in 1900 and
published in Picasso's art journal A;pe_ggyen in 1901.94
Nietzsche's anti-Christian, anti-bourgeois, anti-Philistine
ideas justified the anarchist stand against bourgeois
society and it was this aspect of his philosophy to which
the Spanish intellectuals and artists were so attracted. It
is most likely that Nietzsche's ideas impinged directly on
Picasso's own opinions, which would reject everything that
represented traditional values. Picasso's constant change in
style and disregard for criticism could well be motivated by
Nietzsche's belief that art should be the outcome of violent
explosions, and that self-expression should never be
hampered.95 Recent studies by Leo Steinberg and Ron Johnson
have related Nietzchean concepts such as tragedy and the
process of creation through destruction to specific works by
the artist, specifically in Tne Old Sniterist, 1903, ami
e: Saltimpangnes, 1905, for the former and in Lee
Qemoieellee Q'Avignon, 1907, for the latter.96 And going a
step further, Mark Rosenthal states that "Picasso's vision
of himself and of his responsibilities as an artist is very
nearly identical to Nietzsche's elaborately articulated
concept of the artist and/or superman."97

The importance given to art in anarchist ideology can be
traced back to Proudhon and his close friendship with the

painter Gustave Courbet. Very much influenced by Courbet's

49

position on art as being a weapon against the social system,
Proudhon wrote WWW
eeeiele (1865), exclusively dedicated to the social
importance of art. Similar to his English contemporary John
Ruskin, Proudhon expresses "that art must have a moral
purpose and social relevance in order to have meaning."98

Another great influence in Picasso's early years as a
painter was the reknowned Catalan artist Isidro Nonell,
considered to be "the first Spanish painter of the time to
show the poor with realism and compassion, rather than as
the stock, picturesque beggars of traditional genre."99
Nonell belonged to a group of artists called the Colla Sant
Mezpi (Sant Marti group), a name given to them after one of
the slums in Barcelona. Their pictorial themes centered
around the outcasts and the destitute and have thus been
considered to be the visual counterpart to the Generation of
'98 (fig. 23). Another recurrent theme among these visual
and literary artists was the devastation brought to the
Spanish soldiers of the Cuban War, the most unpopular war of
Spain, known as the Desastne Naeional (1898), who were
abandoned after the defeat at the port of Barcelona without
pay, many sick and wounded. Picasso and Nonell both had
studios in the same building,100 and both artists seemed to
have shared the same subject matter: the miserable figures
repatriated from the Cuban war, and the poor and the beggars

who abounded at the time throughout the streets of

50

Barcelona. Picasso's Blue Period, although originating in
Paris in 1901, is marked by the influence of Nonell through
the silhouettes of figures huddled together and expressing
the pain and resignation of their reality. In addition to
Nonell, the influence of Paul Gauguin, who was greatly
admired by both artists, can also be detected in Picasso's
early period especially as he adopted the style of heavy
contours.101

At this time many artists, including Picasso, became to
admire Gauguin particularly, not only for his style in
painting but more for his determination to exalt the
primitive or the childlike in man.102 This was an attitude
which started in the second half of the nineteenth century
in response to the growing rejection of industrialism which
many thought was generating corruption and decadence. A sort
of cult of the primitive or of the childlike was central to
the Symbolist movement and in Barcelona it took the form of
reviving the regional Catalan folklore, music, arts and
literature. Picasso's attraction to the primitive is also
well documented through his 5239 Soven journal, as it proves
to be a record of Picasso's artistic and political
inclinations and sympathies of the time. A sonnet by Miguel
de Unamuno, a member of the Generation of '98, was selected
for the first number and it begins: "I return to thee my
childhood, as Anateus returned to earth to regain his

strength," and in an article called Our Aesthetic a

51
quotation from Goethe is chosen:
The true poet recieves his knowledge of the world from

nature, and to depict it he does not need a great
experience or great technique.

We

Between 1900 and 1904, when Picasso moved back and forth
from Barcelona to Paris, political unrest began to escalate
in Spain and specially in Catalonia. Massive unemployment,
being the main cause, triggered riots, and labor unions went
on strike against job insecurity and mistreatment. In
response, the government increased repression in a brutal
and violent way by hunting down all those connected with the
anarchist movement or with leftist ideals. By 1904, the
Catalan Modernista movement came to an end; the Quatre Gats
was closed and many of the artists such as Casas, Utrillo,
Riquier and Rusinol, the main Modernista exponents, left
Barcelona. Thus, searching for a more open and secure
society, Picasso moved definitely to Paris where he found
tranquility and an atmosphere in which he might express
himself freely.

But Paris itself was not indifferent to the anarchist and
socialist movements. On the contrary, in Paris anarchism was
actually centered in the artistic and intellectual avant-
garde.104 Thus Picasso had simply moved from one anarchist
milieu to another. And yet the differences between these two
cities were clearly apparent to him. While Barcelona

championed an art expressed in a plain and socially-critical

52
narrative way, Paris on the other hand, sponsored a much
greater and richer artistic radicalism. In the end, Picasso
remained faithful to his Barcelona influences.

Although the gaunt, depressed figures of his Blue Period
(1901-1905) reflect the anarchist view that the role of the
artist is to depict and thus criticize the hard reality of
contemporary society, his style changes from the narrative
to several phases of self experimentation. These years were
perhaps the most difficult for the young Picasso. As a
struggling artist, he too, suffered an impoverished and
insecure life, and was affected by personal tragedies, such
as the suicide of his dearest friend, the Catalan Carles
Casagemas. Thus any interpretation of Picasso's Blue period
style and subject matter, has to bear in mind the general
melancholy of the fin-de-siecle in both Barcelona and
Paris,105 the literary and artistic influences of the
Symbolist movement, personal factors and the anarchist
circles he so much frequented and admired.

Paris, the birthplace of the avant-garde, attracted many
advanced French painters as well as foreign ones. Before
1914, many either lived there temporarily, or chose to stay
indefintely. Among the most reputed foreign artists who
settled in Paris were: the Czechoslovachian Frantisek Kupka,
already about 1895, the Polish Louis Marcoussis in 1903, the
Romanian Constantin Brancusi in 1904, the Bulgarian Julius

Pascin in 1905, the Spanish Juan Gris, the Italians Gino

53
Severini, and Amadeo Modigliani in 1906, the Russian
Alexander Archipenko in 1908, the Polish Jacques Lipchitz in
1909, the French Marc Chagall and the Dutch Piet Mondrian in
1910, and the Lithuanian Chaim Soutine and the Italian
Giorgio de Chirico in 1911.106 There was also an artistic
and literary Spanish colony, and Picasso spent much of his
time with this circle during his first trips to Paris. Among
them we find: the engraver Ricardo Canals who taught Picasso
etching: Jaume Sabartes who later would become his
secretary, closest friend and biographer: Isidro Nonell of
the group Colla Sant Marti, mentioned earlier: the painter
Ramon Pichot who married the girl who was unfortunately
connected to Casagemas' death; the anarchists Jaume Brossa
and Alexandre Cortada: the painter Paco Durio, friend and
follower of Gauguin and from whom Picasso rented his studio
at the Bateau-Lavoir, in April 1904.

In the summer of 1901, before the Blue period, and during
the first exhibition of his work at the gallery of Ambroise
Vollard, Picasso met the Frenchman Max Jacob. This
friendship had an enormous influence on Picasso, especially
from an intellectual point of view. Thanks to Jacob, in 1904
Picasso met the writer/poet and art critic Guillaume
Apollinaire, as well as André Salmon and Alfred Jarry, also
poets, who immensely influenced his formative years and
became to be known as the "bande a Picasso." Through Max

Jacob, also a brilliant poet and art critic, Picasso was

54

introduced to the French symbolist/anarchist circles and to
the literary works of Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarmé.
Picasso shared Max Jacob's ironies, distasteful jokes, and
love for nonesense. In fact both friends "shared the same
room on the Boulevard de Clichy, where one slept by night,
the other by day."107 Apollinaire, however, most influenced
‘Picasso, by constantly giving him artistic confidence and
motivation. Both were foreigners in Paris attracted by the
anarchist movement and its emphasis on individualism and
position against bourgeois society. They also shared an
admiration for the Symbolist movement, especially the poets
whose politicized work rejected bourgeois values in a new
literary form. While embracing the anarchist political and
aesthetic positions, Apollinaire and Picasso added a new
language of Modernism to their work in terms of the freedom
of the artist and the liberation of the imagination.108

Guillaume Apollinaire settled in Paris in 1902 and was
soon connected with the main figures of the anarchist-
Symbolist movement. Felix Feneon, the art critic and
secretary general for the anarchist publication La Revue
Slenene published much of his work until it closed down in
1903.109 Soon afterwards, Lignpepeen a pacifist journal and
Le_Plnne, an avant-garde review, continued to publish his
articles. At this same time, Apollinaire met Andre Salmon

with whom he started his own review, naming it Pestin

d'Esope, Revne des pelles leptnes. This journal only printed

55
nine issues between November 1903 and August 1904 and, like
Picasso's also short-lived A;pe_geyen, it was a radical
journal that included articles on politics and art. After Le
Peepin_§i§eepe Apollinaire continued to publish on a variety
of subjects and literary forms in several other journals
such as mums. Lemme. WW. La
pnelengey_Peeeie, just to name a few. Being multilingual,
Apollinaire had the opportunity to review and translate
journals published in Germany, Spain, Belgium, the United
States, Poland, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Russia, Great
Britain and Hungary, and particularly choosing those
articles with leftist overtones.110 Between 1912-1914,
Apollinaire became the editor of Lee Seireée ge Panis, a
journal with the same characteristics as Le Peepin g'Esope.
Besides art criticism and poetry, news about the Balkan Wars
were published as well as important political happenings,
pacifist articles and interviews with anarchist leaders or
the principal anarchist-symbolists poets. Artworks such as
Picasso's collage-constructions and Alfred Jarry's Ubu roi
marionettes were also included.111 Apollinaire developed a
special interest in art criticism and always wrote and
defended the modern artists. Through his articles he praised
the avant-gardists and repeatedly reminded them about their
obligation to herald "the new and be the voice of the

future."112

By promoting the new art, Apollinaire was also expressing

56

the "optimistic faiths of anarchist aestheticians."113 As he
wrote:

I personally am a great admirer of the modern school of

painting because it seems to me the most audaciuos

school that ever existed. It has raised the questions

of what beauty is in itself. The modern painters want

to represent beauty detached from the pleasure that

man finds in man--and that is something that no

European artist, from the beginning of recorded time,

had ever dared to do. The new artists are searching

for an ideal beauty that will no longer be merely the

prideful expression of the species.1 4

Like many of his contemporaries who were influenced by
the aesthetic ideas of P. Kropotkin, Apollinaire believed
that art should be the reflection of its times and express a
society as a whole--politically, socially and
philosophically. The importance of rejecting everything that
bourgeois society represented was to embrace a new kind of
artistic, moral and political freedom that would
consequently lead them into the "new better" future so much
a part of the anarchist ideal.115
Freedom of art was of special importance to both

Apollinaire and Picasso since, as modernists, they believed
that life and art were inseparable. The reason why we
encounter ambiguities, overlaps, allusions to modern day
life and absurdities in their work are due to the desire to
combine that reality with the aesthetic experience.116
Picasso's future use of newspaper clippings as vital
elements in his collages, clearly reflects this attitude.

The collages with their very carefully chosen newspaper

articles are immersed in political anarchist overtones. In

57

Apollinaire's opening and closing poems for Alcools (1898-

 

1913), for example, we can detect that the poems Zone and
yengemeixe are reminiscent of Picasso's pre-war collages
(1912-1914) in content, and later his Selligrennee 1913-1916
(fig. 24), represent his Cubist venture in poetry.117

Perhaps the individual who influenced these two artists
the most in the sense of considering life and art as
inseparable and indistinguishable from one another, was the
anarchist-writer-poet, Alfred Jarry. Jarry, came to enact
this belief through his personality, by living every moment
of his life as though it were a work of art.118 His
eccentricities and, most of the time, absurd behavior, and
his satire and black humor, reflect such a position. Thus
Jarry's anarchism was partly projected through his artistic
revolt, his dress and conduct. Through the Ubu Roi
productions, the writer satirized and condemned contemporary
society, and expressed a violent grotesque and destructive
world.119

Jarry's behavior and his taste for the strange and
eccentric affected Apollinaire as much as it did Picasso.
Jarry carried a revolver and would fire it into the air for
no reason, a practice that Picasso would copy.120

In Apollinaire's work there seem to be elements that
strongly relate to the beginnings of Cubism. In the play Lee
Ma e s ' " (1903 but produced in 1917), the writer

calls for adventure in all creative fields. He states the

Jun
‘*l

tin

"c
e).
Cl
hi
13
in

Ca

58
need of reason over taste, to love audacity and the
importance of change and experimentation. He also "advocated
the liberation of art from everyday logic and the exaltation
of intuition and the creative role of the unconscious."121

When Picasso definitely moved to Paris in April 1904, he
was entering the last "mannerist" stage of his Blue Period.
Finally, settled in Paris on the Rue Ravignan at the Butte
de Montmartre, then baptized by Max Jacob as the Bateau
Lavoir, Picasso met Fernande Olivier, who became his
mistress, lived with him for the next six years, and helped
change his tragic mood to a more optimistic one. By the
latter part of 1904, Picasso starts his Rose Period with the
"Circus Family" as central subject matter. This period was
to culminate with the famous Selpinpengnee, Paris, 1905, the
largest picture Picasso had ever worked on.

In May of 1906, Picasso and Fernande journey to Barcelona
where Picasso meets with his closest Catalan friends and is
exposed to the new Catalan mediterranean classicism in vogue
at the time. Then he ventures to a remote village called
"Gosol", in the Pyrenees, where he spends three months
experimenting and using certain elements of the Catalan
classicism within his paintings and drawings. Examples of
his work from Gosol are: The Peasants 1906, Tne Toiletpe
1906 (fig. 25), and there are several portraits of the
innkeeper, of Fernande (fig. 26), still lifes with typical

Catalan pottery, and several landscapes of the area.122

59

Back in Paris, Picasso's pastoralism and classicizing
forms done while in Gosol, are replaced by pictures of
stocky, geometricized figures leaning towards the grotesque.
Shockingly, we see Picasso shifting from classical beauty
towards a primitive violence. Continuing to work in this
direction, (in a period of six months) Picasso's nudes
become increasingly violent and the radicalism of his
painting more apparent. This aesthetic revolution led
Picasso into the making of the famous painting Lee
Demoiselles g'evignon (spring-summer 1907) (fig. 27),
regarded today as "the key monument of this century's
culture" 123 and by all means it helped forge Picasso's way

towards the beginnings of Cubism.

59

CHAPTER 3
THE RISE OF CUBISM AND COLLAGE

By the time Picasso painted LS§.2§EQi§§lI§§.§L.AYiQEQB,
he had already established a reputation as an original and
independent artist. His paintings of the Blue and Rose
periods were being bought by private collectors and they had
caught the eye of the well reputed art dealer Ambroise
Vollard. He was at the same time considered, together with
Matisse, a leader of the avant-garde movement in
painting.124 Les pemgiselles, though unfinished, was shown
in the autumn of 1907, and was a shock for those who saw it.
A total departure from his previous work, this painting was
incomprehensible to many and a mockery and offense to
others. The French Fauvist painter Georges Braque, who met
Picasso through Guillaume Apollinaire by the end of 1907,
was at first bewildered when he first glanced at Lee
Deneieellee, but then, soon after, understood that this
particular work was to "mark an important new departure."125
Braque's response to Les Demoiselles was his own painting
called Snand Nu (fig. 28) of spring 1908. Very different
from Picasso's violent angularity, Gpand Nn is a distortion

of a female nude figure with free curvilinear lines and a

60

61
background treated with large angular planes. Together with
Lee_pemeieellee, it is considered a milestone in the history
of Cubism.

Braque's interest in Picasso's new direction in art led
to a collaborative friendship between the two artists that
culminated in one of the utmost revolutionary styles in art:
Cubism.

Early Cubism followed an evolution that, stemming from
the influence of Primitive art (African art and early
Iberian art in Picasso's case) to the influence of Paul
Cezanne, helped free themselves from all conventions that
had governed western painting for the last five hundred
years. Cubists essentially antitraditionalists developed a
unique way of looking at the exterior world by using
different means to record it.

In the unfolding of Cubism, the contributions of both
Picasso and Braque are intimately related and often
difficult to distinguish. Their close relationship made it
possible for new advancements in the new painting method,
and both "deserve credit and both are admirable artists,
each in his own way."126

As Picasso and Braque ventured into this radical new art
style, new discoveries are made and though working toward an '
increasing abstraction of form, the artists never completely
detached themselves from the real world. The most common

subjects used for painting during the cubist period were

62
musical instruments, first introduced by Braque,127 which
became an important and favorite element throughout the
cubist still life painting. Other motifs are landscapes,
bottles, glasses or fruit bowls and common objects found on
modest cafe tables, such as matches, newspapers, wine
bottles, cups, etc. Picasso added portraits and female
figures while Braque rarely introduced the human figure in
his cubist work.

The first cubist painting in which Picasso depicts a
musical instrument with a figure is in Women wipn Mangelin,
(fig. 29) Paris, spring 1909 and by 1911, the musician
becomes one of his major subjects. For the next two years
musical instruments are depicted in almost half of all his
paintings and collages (most generally they are string
instruments-guitar, violin, etc.), either alone, in still
lifes or accompanied by musicians.128 To explain Picasso's
interest in linking music with his work, Leighten (1989)

states:

The representation of music in Picasso's work came to
represent the power of art, its ability to express and
evoke emotion, to move people with thoughts and
feelings otherwise difficult to approach.

The reference to music can also be an analogy to
abstraction considering that music is the most abstract art
form, and Cubism is an abstracted form of reality. Going a
step further, Rosenblum in Picesso and tne Typography of
Snpien (1973) concludes:

Like newspapers and the brand names of alcohol,

63
references to music are as common in the Cubist
dictionary of words as in the Cubist repertory of
still life objects. Although Braque, alluded often to
classical music with words like SONATE, ETUDE, DUO,
ARIA, RONDO, or the names BACH, MOZART, KUBELICK, it
was pggular music that dominated most Cubist
art.

Ever since the Spanish painter Juan Gris, another major
exponent of Cubism, explained the differences between the
early period of "analysis" in Cubist painting and a later
phase which becomes the "synthesis" of the first,131
scholars, thus influenced by Gris' interpretation, have
continued to divide Cubism in two distinct periods: an
analytical phase and a synthetic phase.132 While one can
assume that Analytical Cubism is based on breaking down or
"analysis," and that Synthetic Cubism on building up or
"synthesis," (as Alfred Barr described in his "Cubism and
Abstract Art", 1936)133 this is not the case. The former is
actually based on representing the visible, "tangible" world
through accumulations of little brushstrokes, lines, planes,
edges, becoming lyrical and plastic where recognizable
details give the viewer a clue of the object represented.
Even though representation is not done in a literal way, the
analytical phase of Cubism attempts a new pictorial analysis
of the real world and Pessege is used throughout as a
coherent principal in the paintings, thus creating a
continuum. The feeling of mass in the representation of

forms is replaced by fragmentation and interpenetrating

planes offering multiple views or simultaniety of the form

64
itself.

Synthetic Cubism, on the other hand is reductive and
evocative. Collage elements come into play, and it is
extremely planar opposed to the plasticity of its former
phase. The Synthetic phase introduces a whole new set of
sign systems, a new pictorial language. While Analytical
Cubism works from particular facts to general conclusions or
ideas, Synthetic Cubism starts from general objects
available and known to the artist, randomly selected, to the
specific or new order or work of art, based on pre-existing
ideas, not experienced ones.134

As Picasso and Braque advanced, the Analytical Phase of
Cubism becomes more complex and there was a tendency towards
an ever increasing abstraction, thus, making the legibility
of the painting more troublesome. The images were so far
from the source of the object, with infinite fragmentation
blocking the articulations of space, that a total break with
reality was feared. It was Georges Braque, who, perhaps
unconsciously, introduced a solution to these formal
problems. He worked out a means to maintain fragmentation
but where one could still make reference to spatial
elements. This was done through his famous nail in trompe
l'oeil painted in the vertical still life Violin and
Pelepte, 1910 (fig. 30) and in Sug and Violin, 1910 (fig.
31).135 The illusionistically painted nail is, hence, an

affirmation of the artist's intentions of reference to

"3
x.

'1'

O
()

65

reality. Besides the "nail," Braque, for the first time,
introduces lettering in his painting. In the still life Le
Pyzegene, 1910, (fig. 32) Braque hand painted the name of
the newspaper, "blending the title into the composition and
with no other function than that of identifying as a
newspaper the object over which the name is painted."136 In
the summer of 1911 Picasso followed Braque's example with
his still life L'lngepenganp (fig. 33) where the title of
the newspaper is painted in gothic script. In the same
summer, Picasso came up with a totally new approach in his
still lifes The Tepero (fig. 34) and in The Sottle of Rhum.
Instead of spelling out the entire words, he only used the
first letters of a possible title in order to refer to the
subject of the picture. Thus, the letters serve as a
reference which forces the spectator to draw his own
conclusions.137

Probably copying Picasso's idea of a reference, Braque
used stencilled letters and numerals in his famous Tne
Perpngneee (fig. 35) (made also during the summer of 1911),
giving, as a result, a whole new dimension to the picture
plane. The stencilled letters and numbers D BAL / 10, 40 / &
/ OCD do not give an immediate meaning any more than the
figure and the space, but the fact that the letters are
stencilled suggest that they are external elements totally
independent from the artist's hand. Therefore, the value of

stencilled lettering as a spatial clue was considerably

66

emphasized, becoming an "intrusion into the picture like the
raw material of external reality."138 At the same time, its
effect on the paintings themselves served to stress their
quality as objects. Stencilled lettering brought forward a
new phase of Cubist painting and opened the way for
collage.139

In the last months of 1911, Picasso's canvases tended to
rely more on not only "clues" given through printed
lettering but "again began to center on the object painted,
or rather on the relationship between it and the surrounding
space, which it modified and disrupted."140 The subjects
chosen by Picasso were objects that were connected to common
Parisian cafes. Matches, wineglasses, newspapers, cups,
coffee-pots, pipes, menus, wine bottles, all everyday
objects that could be found on cafe tables were painted and,
of course, reduced to their minimal linear expression
offering us just a perceptible fragmentation of the object
itself. Out of thirty-one still-lifes produced in winter
1911-1912, nineteen, more than half, include part or all of
a table in a cafe.141 Now, the fragmented objects and the
allusive fragmented painted letters (forming words) are used
as spatial guides but, most importantly, Picasso began to
use a new pictorial language that combined signs refering to -
concrete objects and still others "refering to concepts."142

Picasso's invention of collage was the result of a desire

to introduce more precise information into his new

67

paintings. Instead of implementing the illusionistic trompe-
l'oeil, Picasso went a step further and used a fragment of a
ready-made object and directly placed it on to the canvas.
His first collage Spill;liTe_yipn_Sneip;eening, May 1912
(fig. 36), became the first painting ever in which foreign
objects or materials are applied to the picture surface and
considered to be a legitimate art form.143 Collage also
marks the beginning of the Synthetic Phase of Cubism.

Analysing this first collage, Spill-life wipn Snair-
eening, we encounter the painted letters JOU-of Journal
(with the letter "U" twisted forward and out of place), a
slice of lemon, the stem of a pipe, a bowl pointing towards
us, and most importantly, stuck on to the surface, a piece
of oil cloth patterned with the imitation of chair-caning.
The oil cloth was placed on the canvas giving the impression
of depth where Picasso paints on the round base of a
wineglass, a cast shadow and the edge of a chair. Even the
shape of the canvas is nontraditional since it derived from
a series of oval canvases through which he was trying to
abolish the traditional rectangular format.144 As a final
touch, rope surrounds the canvas which first functions as a
conventional frame to enclose a pictorial illusion, and
then, contradicts this function by creating the illusion of
decorative wood carving on the edge of a flat surface.

Picasso's discovery of collage was followed, for some

reason, by a six month period of artistic inactivity.145

68
During this period he travelled, first to Ceret and then to
Sourges (in France). But during his absence, Braque made

another major contribution to Cubism. In his painting Fruit

 

Lien, September 1912 (fig. 37), Braque pasted on paper
fragments, thus becoming the first to initiate the technique
of pepie;_eglle--a term that refers specifically to the use
of paper fragments as opposed to the more inclusive term
"collage." Collage implies the insertion into the picture of
fragments of some foreign material creating a pictorial
illusion. On the other hand, papier colle (pasted paper) is
a medium, a complete pictorial system, based on the
differences in substance, texture, relief, provoked by the
material stuck on, that is by the optical modifications of
the visible surface.146 In contrast to Picasso's first
collage, what is remarkable about Braque's first papier
EQllé; EIQi§_Qi§h, which served as the imitation of an
object, is that the introduction of three pieces of wall
paper (in this case with the imitation of wall panelling),
is independent of the form. The strips can be interpreted as
indicating the wooden surfaces in the background, but above
all, they are acting spatially, creating the effect of depth
as well as conveying the sign of wood, information which we
immediately relate to the presence of the table.

While often made to represent objects, in Braque's works
the strips of papie; colle always fulfill a primary

pictorial or compositional function. On the other hand,

69
Picasso, who took up the device at once, also uses pepien
eelle in this relatively simple way, but his attitude is
more intellectual and imaginative. Picasso becomes
interested in the possibilities of transforming the elements
applied to the pictures by giving them a new and specific
meaning. The immediacy given to the picture plane through
the use of newspaper clippings, cigarette paper packets,
advertisements, bottle labels, playing cards, should not be
seen as only solutions to formal problems encountered in
this second phase of Cubism. On the contrary, these objects
become the tools through which messages are directly or

indirectly channeled.147

In Patricia Leighten's article, Pieeeeg;e_§gllegee_eng
pne Tnzeep of We: 1912-1912 (1983) and, later, in her book
e-O ' e n've s ic sso and Anarchism 897- 914

(1989), the author introduces a totally new approach to
viewing Picasso's collages with newspaper clippings. She is
apparently the first to establish that:
... they (the newspaper clipping collages) to be not
arbitrary bits of printed matter or just signs
designating themselves, but they are accounts and
reports of specific events that immediately anticipate
or forshadow the coming of World War 1.148
In conclusion, Leighten establishes that it is not
surprising to find concrete political meanings in many of
Picasso's collages. As noted earlier, anarchist ideology was

pivotal in his earlier development and it continues to be

for the newspaper items he chose reflect a profound interest

70
in this radical point of view while other clippings reveal
him avidly following reports dealing with the issues and
events of the Balkan Wars.

Picasso's interest in including and, thus, following the
issues of this war, is directly linked to his political
awareness acquired during his Barcelona years and later when
he moved to Paris. As discussed earlier in this paper,
Picasso, from his early teens, had always been in contact
with leftist groups, especially with the anarchist ideology.
Therefore, having developed a social sensibility towards
those under oppression over a period of nearly twenty years,
Picasso became attentive to the events of this war. The
objective of the Balkan conflict, which started on October
15 of 1912, was to emancipate Macedonia from the oppression
of Turkish rule. Geographically, Macedonia lies between
Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, and ethnographically it is an
extension of their races. But apart from the expansionist
ambitions and the racial sympathies, the expulsion of the
Turks not only secured Macedonia's independence but meant
the end of a long Muslim hegemony in that part of Europe.
Consequently, the Balkan league was formed and within a few
months the power of Turkey collapsed.149 Besides, the
sensationalist news coverage given to the Balkan affair made .
it impossible for Picasso to be uninformed about it and much
less indifferent.

Leighten discovered that more than half of the newspaper

71
articles used in Picasso's collages of 1912-14 make
reference to the Balkan Wars and to the anarchist and
socialist response to them.150 Another quarter of the
collages involve uncanny stories of suicide, murder,
vandalism: the remainder alludes to the artistic bohemia and
cafe world.151
In the collage Wm. dated

autumn 1912 (fig. 38), Picasso introduced for the first time
a newspaper clipping.152 In this collage Leighten also
discovers that it is the first in a series of collages that
deals with the Balkan War since Picasso uses part of the
headline from the daily newspaper Le_Sen;nel (dated November
10, 1912) that reads: Le_Pepeille_eieep_Sngege (The Battle
is joined).153 In Sottle of Suze autumn 1912 (fig. 39), the
third work Picasso uses newsprint, Leighten analyses the
collage by actually reading the newspaper fragments glued
onto the canvas. In this particular collage the author
deciphers an article that describes a report about war
victims, the wounded, battle strategies and specifically the
account of a cholera epidemic among the Turkish soldiers. Of
the latter it reads:

Before long I saw the first corpse still grimacing with

suffering and whose face was almost black. Then I saw

two, four, ten, twenty, then I saw a hundred corpses.

They were stretched out there where they had fallen

during the march of the left convoy, in the ditches or

across the road, and the files of cars loaded with

almost dead everywhere stretched themselves out on the

devastated route. How many cholerics did I come upon

like that? Two thousand, three thousand? I don't dare
give a precise figure. Over a distance of about twenty

72
kilometers, I saw cadavers strewing the cursed route
where a wind of death blow and I saw the dying march,
ominous in the middle of troops indifferent and
preparing themselves for combat. But I had seen nothing
yet.154
Within this same collage, Leighten points out to us an
article that deals with a pacifist meeting organized by the
socialist and anarchist parties.155
According to Leighten's study, between November 1912 and
all of 1913, Picasso made approximately 80 collages of which
52 have newspaper fragments with at least half dealing with
the Balkan Wars and the political atmosphere of Europe.156
Le Sonznal, the largest newspaper in France, reaching a
daily circulation of a million copies in 1913,157 with
predominantly military and nationalistic attitudes, was
Picasso's main source of newspaper clippings used for his
collaged canvases. It was quite a sensationalist newspaper
that encouraged its journalists to emphasize on stories of
violence and scandal. A paper that became the ideal vehicle
for incorporating in the collages:
the widely publicized war news and those macabre human
interest stories of murder, suicide and vandalism
which make up another quarter of the newsprint items
used in the period between 1912-1914.153
Picasso's use of many kinds of typography, such as the
body text, headlines, large type from labels and
advertisements were used to extend ambiguity within the
collages, and Picasso was a master in this area. His

resourceful use with the semantics gave him the arena for

creating a pun or to comment on human and political

73

issues.159

As seen in Spngenp_yipn_e_ueyepepe;, Winter 1912-1913
(fig. 40), Picasso shortens the word JOURNAL to URNAL thus
making what Rosenblum called "a slightly indecent pun,"16o
as the combination of the letters can easily be associated
with "URINAL." In the still life Sipneny_Sleeey_Eeyepepe;
eng_yiglin, December 1912 (fig. 41), the drawing of a glass
lies over the cartoon of a floating boat, the head of the
violin is drawn on the entertainment page and the bottle is
created from an advertisement for wines. The newspaper is
here described by an outline and the word JOURNAL.161
Rosenblum also associates a joke in the collage Table with
Bopple, Wineglees eng Newspapeg, autumn-winter 1912 (fig.
42), where the newspaper title is shortened to SPELL and
then underneath follows the cropped headline UN COUP DE THE.
The original title reads Un eoup de Theatge and it relates
to an article about the Balkan Wars dated 4 December 1912.
Having in mind the ambiguities created by Picasso in the
collages, SE SQUP PE THE may allude not only to tea, but to
Stephane Mallarme's famous poem Un cenp de ges jamais
n'abeliré le hasang (A throw of dice will never abolish
chance).162

Stephane Mallarme, probabably the foremost representative -
of the Symbolist movement, extensively condemned "the
commercial use of language" by means of the newspaper

throughout his critical essays.163 He also criticized the

74
column format of the papers stating that it was monotonous
and arbitrary for the reader. Mallarmé's ideal was to create
a new poetic form where sound and vision would predominate

the actual meaning of its words. The poem in which he tried

to fulfill this ideal was Un Soup ge gés jemais n'abolira le
hasezg (A throw of dice will never abolish chance), (fig.

43) first published in 1897. The poem, as Mallarme meant it
to be, has a free flowing format, contrary to the
construction of traditional poetry. Its typography is
inconsistent throughout the poem and at times specific
lettering is used to emphasize the meaning of a word. White
also predominates and in some pages we find at the bottom,
top or middle of the page a word printed in large bold type
or in tiny slanted letters. Other pages have words scattered
across the page forming some kind of movement resembling the
flow of music. On the occasion of its publication, Mallarme
wrote a preface to indicate the readers on how to approach
his poem and at the same time justifies his new poetic order
and condemns the commercialized newspaper form.164

It is well known that Picasso was familiar with
Mallarmé's poetry and the use of news print in his collages
could well be a deliberate attack against Symbolist values.
As seen in the 1912 collage Table witn Bottle, Wineglass and -
Newspapep, the association with Mallarmé's famous poem is
evident. While Mallarme despised the blatancy of newspaper

headlines, Picasso incorporated them into the collages using

75

them as instruments to create puns and ironic statements or
to just communicate very specific messages. Even though
Picasso, from an early age, had moved and worked within
Symbolist values, his use of newspaper could well be seen as
a statement against the purist attitudes of the movement,165
and can well be seen as a threat to nineteenth century
theories of originality and self expression. Nonetheless,
Picasso demonstrates his creative process and originality
through the collages. The fact that he directly incorporates
ready-made objects onto the surface of the canvas, such as
wallpaper, musical scores and newspaper fragments, instead
of representing them by conventional and academic "paint and
brush," does not make his work less original or self
expressive. On the contrary, by manipulating elements
derived from popular culture and mass communication Picasso
created an imaginative new pictorial form with a language of
its own. Furthermore, in response to Mallarme's criticisms
about the commercial use of language, Picasso's pepiens
colles could well be an intent to demonstrate that
commercialized language, when placed and used in a specific
artistic framework, can become a unique and valid art form.

The satire, black humor and macabre related subjects that
characterize nearly a quarter of the newsprint matter in
Picasso's collages, are, according to Leighten's research,
manifestations of social criticism mainly derived from the

influence of his closest friends, the poet-writers Guillaume

76
Apollinaire and most importantly Alfred Jarry.

As mentioned earlier (Chapter 2), for the "modernists"
art becomes inseparable from all facets of life and
expressily freedom of art takes on a social-political stand
when dealing with a stagnant and restrictive society. In
this sense, Alfred Jarry's influence on both Apollinaire and
Picasso cannot be overlooked. Satire was Jarry's main
vehicle for ridiculing and attacking art and society, an
attitude Picasso did not hesitate to embrace.

Besides newsprint collages dealing with Pre-War and
related political events, Picasso's remainig collages are
centered around incidents that appeal to the absurdness of a
bourgeois society that is seduced by this new kind of
feature journalism based on "tragic-comical" stories. These
"stories" which range from suicides, acts of vandalism, gory
crimes and accidents to crimes of passion, were undoubtedly
chosen by Picasso with the intention of being read as social
criticisms.166 Again, Patricia Leighten discovered that:
Teple witn Eottle and Wineglass, autumn 1912, the pasted
article tells about an old man who was mugged, beaten and
left for dead; Vienx Marc. Glass ang Newspaper, spring 1913
(fig. 44), mixes an article on war, strikes and pacifist
demonstrations, with one about an artiste who poisoned her
lover: Men wirn a Vielin, autumn 1912 (fig. 45), includes

the story of a singer who commits suicide after a

performance; Eottle and Wineglass, autumn 1912, a vagabond

77
accuses himself of murder; BQELL§I_§EE_§BQ_N§H§E§E§£, autumn
1912 (fig. 46), describes the vandalizing of public
monuments by "la bande noire," a well known gang of vandals
of the time.167 Other collages include pages with sports
events, the financial page, the listing of theatre shows and
advertisements for tonic waters and liquor (figs. 47, 48).
The great majority of these clippings were deliberately
taken from the sensationalist and widely read daily Le
Tgnrnel as if the collages were specifically made for its
readers.

With the outbreak of the Balkan Wars, many unmistakingly
saw the coming of an even larger and devastating war
envolving almost all of Europe. Picasso and his French
friends frequently discussed the delicate political
atmosphere of the continent and the roles each one would
take in case the threat of war was inevitable. Those who
followed the Anarcho-Symbolist ideals of antimilitarism and
pacifism, Picasso included, most emphatically opposed any
position that argued direct participation.168 Nonetheless,
when the war did break out, virtually the entire avant-garde
marched off to war, including those fervent antimilitarists.
Surprisingly, Kropotkin, the anarchist ideologist, had
preferred to encourage participation in the war rather than
risk domination by the Germans. While Apollinaire became a
French citizen in order to join the army, and Braque

voluntarily enlisted, Picasso remained faithful to the

78
antimilitarist and pacifist ideals of anarchism.169

As Leighten writes, during the pre-war period the press
not only saturated its readers with accounts of the Balkan
Wars but included the heated debates of the different
political parties, left and right, dealing with the threat
of a major war. Picasso never used anarchist or radical
dailies, "which would have replaced description with
polemic,"17o but most of the time preferred to employ
articles from Le_lgnrnel. Its constant bombardement of news
about the Balkan Wars and the controversy surrounding its
consequences, together with its photojournalism, that was as
direct and gory as its headlines, made it near to impossible
for Picasso to ignore.

As the fever of patriotism grew throughout France,
anarchists included, Picasso nonetheless remained consistent
with the antiwar ideology of the movement. The socio-
politically charged newsprint collages manifest Picasso's
interest and concern over the events of the time but can
well be interpreted as criticisms towards a growing violent
world. The collages themselves represent interesting
journalistic accounts of the period since Picasso carefully
clipped entire columns of articles so as to perserve their
legibility. If some were cut into the text, Picasso managed
to retain the general sense of the article.171

During the autumn and winter of 1912 Picasso practically

replaced painting by collage, as he became more and more

79
involved with this new technique and its content. In five
months he executed fifty-one works of which thirty-nine were
collages, while only twelve were paintings, including oil,
watercolor and gouache.172 As observed by Leighten, these

twelve paintings followed the formal elements of Guitar,

Sheer-Ensic eng Winegless, Paris, autumn 1912, and Sniper
eng_Sneer_gf_Eneie, Paris, autumn 1912 (fig. 49), proving
his interest of adapting the collage medium to painting.

Of the forty-six collages made during the following year,
1914, only four include newsprint with relevant world
events, a clear indication that he no longer wanted to deal
with these issues.173

Picasso did not use collage exclusively as a means for
raising political themes. In a series of paintings known as
Norre Avenir est dans l'air (Our Future is in the Air), all
dated spring 1912 (fig. 50), before Still-life wirh Oneir-
eening, the possibility of a war is feared. Therefore they
become the first Cubist paintings with concrete political
subject matter.174 Nonetheless, collage replaces painting
with its direct language.175

As the war went on, Picasso remained in Paris at the side
of his mistress Eva who was dying of tuberculosis. The
obssession with death and feeling uncomfortably out of place -
at the sight of soldiers returning from the front line,
wounded or on leave, affected Picasso's work considerably.

After seven years of developing the Cubist style side by

80
side with Braque, the subsequent experience of being-
suddenly left alone, led to radical changes in his work.
Abruptly, his paintings shifted, back and forth, from almost
total abstraction to linear realism (e.g. Perrreir_er
Anpreiee_yellerg, Paris 1915 (fig. 51), pencil on paper). He
also went back to allegorical themes: in 1915-16, a series
of harlequins appeared as allegorical self-portraits in
extreme abstract geometric designs.176 This period can be
considered a very creative and diverse phase for Picasso, at
the same time that he now found himself very lonely, since
practically the entire avant-garde had gone to war.

In 1917 the artist met the cultural entrepreneur Jean
Cocteau who at the time was connected with the Ballets
Russes. In fact Cocteau offered Picasso the job of
decorating the set and costumes for Parade, a new ballet
being choreographed by Diaghilev and with music by Eric
Satie. Moving to Rome where the Ballet was to be staged,
while working on its decor, Picasso travelled to Florence
and Milan and met the "futurists" and its main artist
Umberto Boccioni. He also met his future wife the Russian
ballerina Olga Koklova, daughter of a prominent general and
member of the Russian bourgeoise.

Back in Paris by Fall of 1916, the Ballet Parade opened
in May of 1917, and in 1918 he married Olga. During these
war years, the avant-garde artists who remained in Paris

scorned Picasso's new work as they considered it a total

81
break from the Cubist philosophy and ideals, and he thus
became more and more aloof from his old circle of friends.
Picasso's marriage to Olga contributed to a further
distancing of himself from these friends, as he began to
move within the wealthy and aristocratic circles in Paris.
In 1918, at the end of the war, Apollinaire died in the
autumn and Braque, back from the war, totally disapproved
Picasso's new art style and his new companions and, even
more, his new, bourgeois inclinations. Never again did they
work together.

During the 1920's, Picasso totally removed politics from
his work as they no longer served a central role in his
life. As for Cubism, Picasso never abandoned it, even though
the style of some of his work, from the years 1917-1921,
turned towards "the pursuit of classical or "Latin
virtues."177 Picasso's Cubism after the Great War, was never
the same as during the Analytical or Synthetic Phase, but as
much as those art critics who oppose Cubism tend to reject,
Picasso's work remained essentially Cubist.

Picasso's friendship with the founder of the Surrealist
movement and member of the French Communist Party, Andre
Breton, introduced him once again to a circle of artists who
saw their art as serving socio-political and revolutionary
ideals.1'78 By the late 1920's and during the 1930's, Picasso
gradually moved back to the left until one major event that

took place in the Spanish Basque town Guernica, in 1937,

82
urged him to take a clear political stance, publicly and
openly. As protest to the bombing of this Spanish town, by
General Franco's German allies, Picasso responded with the
monumental painting El Guernica, considered to be his major
masterpiece and most politically charged work. El Guernica
is related to the artist's Synthetic Phase of Cubism and is

allusive to the collages of the same period.

CONCLUSION

As with El Guernice, different interpretations are
being given to Picasso's Collages of 1912-14. And
ambiguities abound in both. Critics have always traced the
symbolism involved in El Guernica to Picasso's private life
and the development of a very personal language, based on
Mediterranean mythology, which he created in previous works,
(e-guThe—Vellardimg. 1930-37. and the W,
1935) and that he transforms to be re-used in El_Snernige.
On a more direct and universal level, El_Snerniee is the
denunciation of the brutal destruction of a small
defenseless Basque town. On the other hand, the Collages of
1912-14 had always been analyzed from a formal point of
view. Only when art historians begin to give importance to
the deliberately chosen text and unravel their hidden
messages, do we encounter a more complex art that offers a
totally new dimension with different interpretations. The
Collages that deal with the Balkan Wars overemphasize the
brutality of the war, the casualties and the devastation
through the artist's careful selection of articles. In this
sense, the Collages are very direct with their political
commentaries considering that the spectator can read the

text. Furthermore, by juxtaposing word and image Picasso

83

84
makes humorous and ironical comments adding an ambiguous
quality to them.

With El_Snerniee, Picasso relied mostly on the news
reports and editorials printed in Liannenir, the French
Communist paper, for visual ideas and ideological
content.179 Reports such as "a thousand incendiary bombs
dropped by the planes of Hitler and Mussolini reduced to
ashes the city of Guernica. The number of dead and wounded
is incalculable,"18° and the emphasis on the fact that the
majority of victims were women and children, were not
overlooked by Picasso. The editorials stressed both the
victims of Guernica and criticized France and England's
position of neutrality by stating "Women and children
perished in the flames because France and Great Britain let
Hitler and Mussolini transport incendiary bombs to
Spain."181 Even though Picasso completely omits pasting
newspaper clippings on El Guernica, one still detects a
reference to "newspaper."

In general, newspapers had a tremendous impact on
Picasso. To such an extent, that in his art, they become a
source of inspiration, conceptually and visually. The legacy
left by the Collages of 1912-14 are immediately detected in
El_Snerniee. The central figure of the mural painting, the
horse, is textured imitating printed-type: the monochrome
quality of the painting, where blacks, whites and grays

dominate, also allude to newspaper; and the overall

85
composition is based on a collage-like style.

El Gnernice and the Collages of 1912-14 follow a very
similar historical framework. In both instances Picasso
responds, through his art, to major world events surrounding
a human tragedy that foreshadows the threat of a mayor war
(World War I and II). Picasso's political convictions,
however, never interfered with his artistic freedom. With El
Snerniee, not only does his personal symbolic language come
into play, but, past styles are also interwoven in the final
painting. And, yet, its artistic expression successfully
displays the outrage of a brutal act against humanity. In
the Collages, Picasso's freedom of choosing the newspaper
articles, do not prevent him from doing what he had proposed
to do from the beginning: to avoid total abstraction in his

Cubist work.

ENDNOTES

1. Herschel B. Chipp, Picasso's Guernica, History,
Trenefiernepions eng Meanings,(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:

University of California Press, 1988), p. 3.
2. Ibid.

3. Ellen C. Oppler, editor, Picasso' e Guernica.

ust ons Int oductor Essa Document . Poetry.
Sripieism, AnalysisI (New York and London: W. W. Norton &
Co., 1988), p. 48.

4. An example: the American Lincoln Brigade whose members
fought side by side with the Loyalists.

5. Oppler, p. 50.
6. Chipp, p. 6.
7. Ibid, p. 4.

8. See Chipp, for a more detailed account of Picasso's
reluctancy to collaborate with the Spanish Pavilion; pp. 4-5.

9. Ibid, p. 11.

10. Ibid, p. 7, and Oppler, p. 51.
11. Chipp, p. 7.

12. Ibid, p. 9.

13. Ibid, p. 17.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid, p. 39.

16. See Chipp for a detailed account of the German
intervention in the Spanish civil war.

17. Ibid, p. 28.
18. Ibid, p. 31.

86

87
19. See Chipp p. 31 for a more detailed account on this subject.
20. Herbert Southworth, Guernica! Guernica! A Study of
Sonrnelism, Diplomacy, Propaganda and History. (Berkeley,

Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1977),
p. 12.

21. Chipp, p. 33, and see Southworth, chaps. 1-2 passim for
the complete news coverage.

22. Chipp, p. 39.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid, p. 43.

26. See Southworth for a comprehensive survey of the role of
the press after the bombing of Guernica.

27. Chipp, pp. 39-40.
28. Southworth, p. 24.

29. Chipp, p. 40.

30. Josep Palau i Fabre, El Guernica de Picasso, (Barcelona:
Editorial Blume, 1979), p. 45.

31. Ellen C. Oppler, editor, Picasso's Guernica,
Illnsprepions, Introductory Essay, Documents, PoetryI

C ' ' 's n s's, (New York and London: W.W. Norton &
Co., 1988), p. 76, and p. 142.

32. Rudolph Arnheim, Picasso's Guernica: The Genesis of a
Peinting, (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1962), p. 48.

33. Oppler, p. 142.
34. Hilton, p. 234.
35. Arnheim, p. 48.

36. Phyllis Tuchman, "Guernica and "Guernica," Artforum
(April, 1983) pp. 44-51.

37. Chipp, p. 41 and Oppler, pp. 163-164.

38. Oppler, p. 80 and Chipp, p. 133.

 

88
39. Oppler, p. 80.
40. Ibid, p. 103.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid, p. 94.

43. Ibid, p. 148. Taken from an interview by Jerome Seckler
published in New Masses, (March 13, 1945), pp. 4-7.

44. Ibid, p. 148.
45. Ibid, p. 96.

45. Ibid, p. 100.
47. Ibid, p. 102.

48. Ibid, p. 84; and Anthony Blunt, Picasso's Guern'ca, (New
York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 44-47.

49. Alice Doumanian Tankard, Picasso's Guernica After

R en's Ho o s 0 War, (Philadelphia: The Art Alliance
Press, London and Toronto: Associated University Presses,
1984), passim.

50. Oppler, p. 90.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid, p. 295.

53. Ibid, pp. 91-2.

54. Blunt, p. 26.

55. Chipp, p. 137.

56. Ibid, p. 141.

57. Frank D. Russell, Pieasso's Guernica: The Labyrinth of
Narrative end Vision, (Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld & Schram,
1980), p. 51.

58. William Rubin, Da a an Su ea is Art, (New York:
Abrams, 1969), p. 290.

59. See Oppler, pp. 250-1 for a detailed account of
Picasso's explaination on why he joined the French Communist
Party.

89
60. Joseph Phillip Cervera, Modernismo: the Catalan
Penaiseance of the Arts, (New York & London: Garland
Publishing, Inc. 1976), p. 219.
61. Ibid, p.17
62.Albigensian heresy: a religious sect that opposed the
church of Rome in the 12th century: so called from Albi a

town in the south of France where they resided. They were
exterminated during the Crusades and the Inquisition.

63. Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists the Heroic Years
l86S-i936, (New York: Free Life Editions, 1977), p. 37.

64. Gerald Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth, (Cambridge: At the
University Press New York: The Macmillan Company, 1943), p.
24-26.

65. Cervera, p. 18.

66. Ibid, p. 19.

67. Ibid, p. 21.

68. Ibid, p. 222.

69. Ibid, p.223.

70. Marilyn McCully, Els Quatre Gats Art in Barcelona Around
1 00, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,

1978), p. 30.
71. Ibid, p. 16.
72. Ibid.

73. Ibid.

74. Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, Picasso, Creator and
Destroyer, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), p. 28.

75. Ibid, p. 90.

76. James Joll, The Anarchists, (Boston and Toronto: Little,
Brown and Company, 1964), p. 225.

77. Ibid, chap. 1 passim; Brenan, passim: and Patricia
Leighten, Picasso: Anarchism and Art 1897-1914, ( New
Brunswick: Rutgers University The State University of New
Jersey, Ph.D. dissertation, 1983), Chapter II, passim.

9O

78. George Woodcock, Anarchism a History of Libertarian
igees eng movements, (Cleveland and New York: The World
Publishing Company, 1962), pp. 9-10.

79.Donald Egbert, Soeial Radicalism and the Arts, (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), p. 44.

80. Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 11.

81. Ibid.

82. Leighten, pp. 43-44.

83. Egbert, p. 45.

84. Bookchin, p. 44: see also Temma Kaplan, Anarchists of
Andelusia l868-l203, (Princeton New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1977), passim.

85. Leighten, p. 71.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid, pp. 72-73.

88. Cervera, pp. 160-187.

89. Anthony Blunt and Phoebe Pool, Picasso the Formative

Years, A Study of his Sources (New York and London: New York
Graphic Society, 1962), p. 12.

 

90. McCully, p. 150.

91. "Generation of '98' (noventyochistas) got their name
because it conmemorates the year Spain lost the last of her
colonial empire in military disaster and humiliation.

92. Blunt/Pool. p. 11.
93. Leighten, p. 60.
94. Blunt/Pool, p. 7.
95. Ibid.

96. Ron Johnson, "Picasso's 'Old Guitarist' and the

Symbolist Sensibility," Art Forum, XIII (December 1974), pp.

61-62.

, "Picasso's Parisian Family and the

Saltimbanques", Arts Magazine, LI (January 1977), pp. 92-93.
Leo Steinberg, "The Philosophical Brothel" (Part 2), Ar;

News, LXXI (October 1972), p. 40.

 

91
97. Mark Rosenthal, "The Nietzschean Character of Picasso's
Early Development," Arts Magazine, Vol. 55 (October 1980),
p. 87.
98. Egbert, p. 199.
99. Blunt/Pool, p. 11.
100. Ibid, p. 12 and Leighten, pp. 89-90.
101. Blunt/Pool, p. 13.

102. Ibid, pp. 12-13 and Timothy Hilton, Picasso, (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1985), p. 67.

103. Ibid, p. 12.

104.Egbert, p. 45 and Renato Poggioli, T eor of the vant-
Serge, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 97.

105. Hilton, p. 23.

106. Theda Shapiro, Painters and Politics, The European
Avent-Gerde and Soeiety, 1900- 1225, (New York: Elsevier
Scientific Publishing Co., 1976), p. 58.

107. Blunt/Pool, p. 16.
108. Leigthen, p. 61.
109. Roger Shattuck, T e Ban et Years The Ori ins of the

Avenr-Gerge in Eranee 1885 Lo World War T, (London: Jonathan
Cape, 1969), p. 261.

110. Patricia D. Leighten, Pe-Ordering the Universe, Picasso
ang Anarcniem lSS7-l914, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1989), p. 55.

111. Ibid, p. 56.
112. Ibid, p. 57.
113. Leighten (1983), p. 140.

114. Cited in Leighten (1983), p. 140 from: Apollinaire on

ALL: Essays eng Reviews l202-191 . Ed. Leroy Breunig, New
York, 1972, p. 225.

115. Leighten (1989), p. 59.

92

116. Ibid, p. 61.

117. Ibid, p. 63.

118. Blunt/Pool, p. 23.

119. Ibid, p. 24.

120. Ibid.

121. Ibid.

122. Hilton, pp. 66-67.

123. Yve-Alain Bois, "Painting as Trauma," Art in Ameriea,
(June 1988), p. 131.

124. John Golding, Cupism: A History and an Anelysis 1907-
l914. (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1968), p. 21.

125. Ibid, p. 19.

126. Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, The Rise of Cubism, (New York:
Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc. 1949), p. 6.

127. Ibid, p. 9. and Leighten 1989, p. 117.
128. Ibid.
129. Ibid.

130. Robert Rosenblum, "Picasso and the Typography of

Cubism." Picasso l881-1973, (New York: Paul Elek Ltd.,
1973), p. 57.

131. Golding, p. 115.
132. Ibid. pp. 114-17.

133. Jack Flam, "Cubiquitous," Art News (december 1989),
p.148.

134. See Mark Roskill, The Interpreration of Cubism, (London
and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1985), pp. 154-

162, for a detailed analysis of the different
interpretations given to both the Analytical and Synthetic
phases of Cubism by different authors.

135. Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, Bragne The Papier Colles,
(Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1982), p. 27.

136. Golding, p. 92.

93
137. Pierre Daix and Joan Rosselet. Picasso The Cubist Years
l9D7-19l6: a Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings and Related
EQ£E§- (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), p. 89.
138. Ibid.
139. Ibid.
140. Ibid, p. 90.
141. Ibid, p. 92.
142. Ibid, p. 94.
143. Golding, p. 103.
144. Daix/Rosselet, p. 94.
145. Ibid.

146.Clement Greenberg, "The Pasted Paper Revolution." Art
News , LVII, (Septemnber 1958), pp. 46-7-50.

 

147. Leighten, 1989, chaps. 4 and 5, passim.

148. Patricia Leighten, "Picasso's Collages and the Threat
of War, 1912-1913." Art Bulletin (December 1985), p. 653.

149. Jacob Gould Schurman, The Balkan Wars 1912-13, (London:
Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press, 1914), passim.

150. Leighten, 1989, p. 121.

151. Ibid.

152. Daix/Rosselet, p. 287; Leighten, 1989, p. 125.

153. Ibid.

154. Taken from translation made by Leighten, 1989, p. 126.
155. Ibid, p. 127.

156. Ibid, p. 128.

157. Claude Bellanger et. al., Histoire Generale de la
Presse Erancaise, Tome III 1871 a 1940 (Paris: Presses
Universitaires, 1972), p. 315-317.

158. Leighten, 1989, p. 130.

94

159. Susan Marcus, "The Typographical Element in Cubism,
1911-1915: Its Formal and Semantic Implications". Art

Internatienal (May 1973). p- 26-

160. Rosenblum, p. 52.

161. Marcus, p. 26.

162. Rosenblum, p. 52.

163. Christine Poggi, "Mallarme, Picasso, and the Newspaper
as Commodity." The Yale Journal of Criticism (Fall 1987), p.
135.

164. Stephane Mallarm, Dice Thrown never will annul Chance.
Translation by Brian Coffey of Un coup de des jamais
n'abolir le neserg. (Dublin: Dufour Editions, Inc., 1965) passim
165. Poggi, p. 138.

166. Leighten, 1989, p. 131.

167. These examples and their content were taken from
Patricia Leighten's article: "La propagande par le Rire":
Satire and Subversion in Apollinaire, Jarry and Picasso's
Collages," Gezette des Beaux Arts, Tome CXII, 1437
livraison, (Oct. 1988), pp. 168-169.

168. Ibid, 1989, p. 130.

169. Ibid.

170. Ibid.

171. Ibid, p. 134.

172. Ibid, p. 128.

173. Ibid, p. 129.

174. Ibid.

175. See Daix/Rosselet, p. 278, nos. 463, 464 and 465.

176. Ibid, p. 169.

177. Christopher Green, Cubism and its Enemies, Modern
Movements end Peection in French Art, 1916-1928, (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 14.

178. See Egbert, pp. 97-308, for a description of the
Surrealist's connection with Communism.

179.

180.

181.

Tuchman,
Ibid, p.

Ibid.

PP-
46.

44-51.

95

APPENDIX

    

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1. Dream and Lie of Franco I, January 8, 1937.

97

%

\

 

‘4 § “ gee—03318:? \

 

2. Dream and Lie of Franco II, January 8-9, June 7, 1937.

98

 

3. Portrait of the Marquesa, A Christian Slut Tossing a
Coin to the Moorish Soldiers, Defenders of the Virgin,
1937-1938.

 

99

.hmma

.moflcumsu Hm

.v

 

100

 

5. Composition Study I, May 1, 1937.

 

101

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Composition Study II, May 1,

1937.

 

102

 

 

 

 

7. Composition Study Pencil on gesso on wood, May 1,
1937.

 

103

 

 

8. Composition Study on Pencil and Gouache on gesso on
wood, May 2, 1937.

104

 

1937.

a er, May 9,

Com osition Stud Pencil on white

9.

105

 

 

Photographed May 11, 1937.

State I.

10.

106

. 9".
1C
.9
, _.

“9‘ ‘ ‘ _‘
. , »&
, ;$::IV

71m

 

11. State II. Photographed around May 13, 1937.

107

 

1937.

State IV. Photographed between May 20 and 24,

12.

108

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B

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In.

W

m

     

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we.”

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1935.

Minotauromach ,

13.

109

 

14. Guido Reni, Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1611.

110

 

 

15. Nicolas Poussin, Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1628-29.

111

FE11E1111211 GAH12|A LUHEA

0E1E 10511.11 A GflinflE a F

 

16. Federico Garcia Lorca, photograph.

112

 

l7. Julio Gonzalea, Peasant Woman of Montserrat, 1937.

 

113

 

1897.

Caridad (Science and Charity),

Ciencia

'18.

114

 

 

1900.

Pere Romeu, c.

4 Gats

Poster:

Ramon Casas,

19.

 

115

 

20. Portrait of Josef Cardona, 1899.

 

116

L'L'ncscria Uh’ Ru>luurnnl

\ '1 IRIS h/VIS

ll \RCI‘JJ INA ,

   

21. Printed Menu Cover: 4 Gats: Menestra, 1899.

117

 

1900.

Plat del Dia, C.

 

4 Gats:

22.

118

73"".11 7!‘- h:

. ‘7‘_‘ '1’"?

 

23, Isidro Nonell, Annunciation in the Slums, c. 1892.

119

 

 

La Colombe Poignardee
etkhktdfhu

 

 

“and.“

M

u comma POlCNARDEE ET 1.: ET mu

 

24. Guillaume Apollinaire, Calligrammes, "La Colombe
Poignardee et Le Jet d'Eau", 1913-16.

120

 

The Toilette, 1906.

25.

121

 

Fernande, 1906.

26.

122

 

1907.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,

 

27.

28.

 

Georges

Braque,

123

Grand Nu,

1908.

124

 

Woman with Mandolin, spring 1909

29.

125

 

Georges Braque, Violin and Palette, 1910.

30.

 

 

31. Georges Braque, Jug and Violin, 1910.

127

 

 

1910.

Le P ro ene,

Georges Braque,

32.

128

 

 

summer 1911.

L'Inde endant,

33.

129

 

, .a .r K\ q~§$J ..
. V v : .
8V . .

.344...

 

summer 1911.

The Torero,

34.

130

 

35. Georges Braque, The Portuguese, summer 1911.

131

   

36. Still-life with Chair-caning, May 1912.

 

132

 

 

September 1912.

I

Fruit Dish

Georges Braque,

37.

133

 

11

\\.

a

 

38. Guitar, Sheet Musicz and Glass, autumn 1912.

134

 

 

 

autumn 1912

Bottle of Suze,

39.

135

can. .12.: ‘III

+ i
p.

 

40. Student with a Newspaper, winter 1912-l3.

136

 

 

 

41. Siphon, Glass, Newepaper, and Violin, December 1913-

14.

137

 

 

 

 

42. Table with Bottle, Wineglass, and Newspaper, autumn-
winter 1912.

138

[T 11:15 THE NUMBER
30-0- nav MIGHT IT EUST
w nun Mdoouuoa chanced OOI'IV
MIGHT IT BEGIN .\.\'D MIGHT IT END
«finances-d new-no-
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1.

43. Stephane Mallarme, Un coup de des jamais n'aboliré
1e hasard, page of poem.

 

 

 

139

 

 

 

44. Vieux Marc, Glass, and Newspaper, spring 1913.

 

140

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

autumn 1912.

Man with a Violin,

45.

 

141

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

46. Bottle, Cup and Newspeper, autumn 1912.

142

,2 .. ...... .axi. mmlm..._-.m.flfi £14?

 

  
 

r1

 

1912.

Bottle on a Table,

47.

 

143

 

48. Bowl with Fruit, Violin and Wineglass, 1912.

 

144

 

autumn 1912.

49. Guitar and Sheet Music,

145

 

spring 1912.

Notre Avenir est dans l'Air,

 

50.

146

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51. Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1915.

 

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