Description of the Course:

            This course will present the development, in the early 20C, of a new kind of art – especially: Cubism. We will begin with a study of the early career and experiments of Pablo Picasso,  through careful study of a selection of works from each stage of his career, which will be investigated in lectures, discussion and readings. Students will explore the artist’s modes of visual representation and levels of meaning in his works, and his contribution and relationship to 20C culture – from his beginnings in Spain and first trips to Paris through the invention of Cubism, experiments with collage, “Neoclassicism,” Surrealist associations, his involvement with politics in the late 1930’s and World War II, his variations on important European masterpieces, to the last private works of his old age. Though the figure of Picasso, his art, will be the focus of the course – for his inescapable modes of invention – other artists, certainly, of the same moments of Modernism, will be investigated – Matisse, Braque (obviously), the Cubist interpretations of Gris and Leger, and Surrealist figures – the latter instigators not followers, who lead while Picasso took what from them was interesting.

We will address criticism of Picasso’s work through the writings of important scholars such as Steinberg, Rubin, Rosenblum, Reff, Poggi, Krauss and others, and the changing appreciations of his accomplishment. Also to be discussed will be the inescapable relationship, in this artist’s case, between art and biography, and the “myth” of Picasso constructed by his admirers, the artist himself, and even his detractors.

            There is no textbook for this course; readings of several key texts will be assigned for each lesson.  These will be available in books and photocopies on reserve or available on-line. The student is responsible for these essential reading assignments (70-90 pages per week); they must be completed on schedule to facilitiate class discussion. A level of maturity and responsibility on the part of each student is assumed in order to make the course function for everyone.

Aims of the Course:

Students wil be expected to develop, in the course of the semester, the following:

-       Ready recognition of selected works by Picasso and his contemporaries, and knowledge of basic facts related to them. A basic understanding of the development of styles, movements and innovations of the period.

-       Development of the visual and analytical skills of looking and thinking about modern art.

-       Awareness of problems of interpretation in relation to the study of selected works; familiarity with issues of iconography, meaning, and cultural issues relevant to selected works.

-       A basic understanding of the cultural, historical and social context of the works of Picasso and his contemporaries. Familiarity with meaningful biographical material – associates, collectors, literary figures and friends -who influenced his work, career and ideas, and those of his contemporaries.

-       Development of the skills of critical reading of art-historical texts, and of critical discussion and writing about various scholarly approaches.

-       Furthering of research skills, and critical assessment of appropriate sources. Skills of creating a bibliography and performing research using the JCU library, other libraries in Rome, and appropriate scholarly electronic sources – books and articles, no Wiki-pedia!

-       Development of writing skills: declaration and development of a clearly stated theme, development of methods of argumentation and organization, written expression and structure.

-       Furthering of oral communication skills, through class discussion and oral presentation.

Picasso – A Schedule of Lessons

Spring 2017 / C. Smyth

NB: “Work in Progress” - ! you will receive a more finished schedule with dates, updated readings, etc. in the first day of class.

Especially: Other Contemporaries of Picasso will be included, and with readings.

Themes:

The Development of Cubism

The Investigation of Visual Representation (Early 20C)

Contemporary Contributions and Alternatives

Early Modern Experiments in (still figurative) Representation

Aftermath and Rethinking (“Classicism” and Surrealism)

Sequence of Lessons:

Schedule of Classes and Assigned Readings:

(The instructor reserves the right to make changes in the schedule with the agreement of the students. )

Each class is organized around:           

-       a major work (or group of works) by Picasso, and contemporaries - especially artists such as Georges Braque, Matisse, the Surrealists, etc., will be included.

-       key scholarly texts will be assigned as Required Reading – one or two articles, essays, book chapters. These are equivalent to a “textbook,” and it is expected that the student will have read these thoroughly and be equipped for discussion in the relevant lesson.

An important component of each lesson is discussion of the assigned readings. In the classroom, students will be expected to be able to provide oral summaries, and to debate relevant points and arguments posed in these readings in relation to works shown in the slides (see “Participation”).

For further “recommended” reading, consult the bibliography (forthcoming on on-line syllabus, but especially printed matter given you the first week of class).

I am still working on assigned readings and bibliography.

Do be aware that I was in graduate school the teaching assistant (and research assistant) to the late Prof. Leo Steinberg. That is why I teach this course! Up-dates are needed, but the great work of Steinberg, Rubin, Rosenblum, Fry and others of their generation are still fundamental, and required reading. A later generation has also made great contributions: Poggi, Leighton, Staller, Bois, etc. - and I will be adding more recent literature as well. Please stay posted!

“Big Picasso Books”, surveys, on reserve will include:

-       Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art (May- 22 – Sept. 16, 1980), ed. William Rubin, Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1980 – still the best overview, ON RESERVE JCU

-       Brigitte Leal, Christine Piot, Marie-Laure Bernadac, The Ultimate Picasso, N.Y: Abrams, 2000 – once used as textbook, now out of print, though will check, ON RESERVE JCU

The bibliography of Picasso is vast – Final readings list, bibliography forthcoming. Below, in the indication of the sequence of lessons, are included basics, which may change, and be supplemented.

January 15 (M):

            Introduction to the course and requirements. If time, beginning of the introduction to the art of Picasso, through selected works.

January 17 (W):  We will examine – in an extremely visual, formalist manner, to get started - four to five selected works carefully, thinking about Picasso’s figural/object-oriented representation as an act, concept, performance, and query of the problematics of painting and sculpture.

January 19 -

STUDY VISIT TO THE EXHIBITION AT THE SCUDERIE DEL QUIRINALE: Picasso’s “Classic Phase”

More information forthcoming. I am making reservations for 10 students. LAST DAYS OF SHOW!

This trip is a requirement for the course!

January 22 (M):

            Discussion of Steinberg, “Picasso’s Sleepwatchers,” for a study in one method on investigation, of many. Useful, since it addresses a wide chronological range of the artist’s work (omitting: Cubism! We will discuss later!), and blends the problematic of biography/sexuality with a knowing approach of visual Looking and reading of images.

January 25 (W):

            Picasso’s formation (1881 -1901). The art of Spain. Barcelona and first Parisian experiences. Influences academic, avant-garde and “modernista,” and youthful aspirations. Art Nouveau in Spain, journalistic illustrations, satire and local dilemmas, political and cultural.

            Assignment to each student of personal Picasso territory through individual “themes”           

            Required Reading:

Léal, Piot and Bernadac (henceforth LPB): Have read text and studied reproductions, pp. 9-43

Leo Steinberg, “Sleepwatchers,” in Other Criteria, N.Y., (1972) 1975 – a model of art historical reading – interpretation through formal investigation (Discussion)

            Recommended Reading:

            Natasha Staller

Also Richardson, more comments on his contribution later

            TBA

Section II –

            The “Blue Period” (1901-4); aesthetic ideals, personal trauma and/ social conditions

            Required Reading:

            LPB, pp. 43-72

            Pick one:

            Michael Leja, “Le Vieux Marcheur and Les Deux Risques: Picasso, Prostitution, Venereal Disease and Maternity, 1899-1907,” Art History, 8, n. 1 (March 1985) 66-81  JStor

            Robert Lubar, “Narrating the Naiton: Picasso and the Myth of El Greco,”in Jonathan Brown, ed., Picasso and the Spanish Tradition, New Haven and London, 1996  RES

Recommended Reading:

Marilyn McCully, ed., Picasso: The Early Years 1892-1906, Exh. Cat., National Gallery of Art, Washingto;, New Haven and Yale, 1997  REF

John Richardson, A Life of Picasso: 1881-1906, vol. I, London, 1992 (esp. Chapters 14 and 17)

Section III –

The “Rose Period” (1904-6); circus performers, saltimbanques and harlequins; the bande à Picasso and poetic friends

Required Reading:

LPB, pp. 72-89

Pick one:

            Theodore Reff, “Harlequins, Saltimbanques, Clowns and Fools,”Artforum, 10, n.2 (October 1971), 30-43  JSTOR or Photocopy

            Marilyn McCully, “Magic and Illusion in the Saltimbanques of fPicasso and Apollinaire,”Art History, 3, n. 4 (December 1980), 425-34  Jstor

Recommended Reading:

            Picasso: The Early Years, Exh. Cat.; Richardson, vol. I   (See above)

Section IV –

            Summer (1906) at Gosol: new experiments in landscape, portraiture, sculpture; the difficult adventure of the portrait of  Gertrude Stein

            Required Reading:

            LPB, pp. 90-107

            Pick one: (Both in Picasso: The Early Years, Exh. Cat.  RES

                        Robert Rosenblum, “Picasso in Gosol: The Calm Before the Storm”

                        Margeret Werth, “Representing the Body in 1906”

            Recommended Reading:

Richardson vol. I; other essays in Early Years Cat.

Section V –

The Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907): The development of this seminal painting through sketches and thought; the influences of Cézanne, Iberian sculpture, African art; representation and eroticism explored

Required Reading:

Leo Steinberg, “The Philosophical Brothel,” Art News, Part I, 71, no. 5 (1972, 20-29; Part II, 71, no. 6 (1972), 38-47; reprinted in October, no. 44 (1988), 7-74   RES, photocopy

Recommended Reading:

William Rubin, “The Genesis of ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Museum of Modern Art, N.Y., 1994 – and study the sequence of studies, here reproduced very completely

W.Rubin, “Picasso,” in Primitivism in 20C Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern, Exh. Cat., Museum of Modern Art, N.Y., 1984, vol. I  RES and Foster, others…

Section VI –

The Three Women, 1908: transformations toward the beginning of Cubism. Reinventions and examinations of landscape and still-life, with Georges Braque – and as always, the world of the figure.

            Required Reading:

            Pick one:

William Rubin, “From Narrative to ‘Iconic’ in Picasso,”Art Bulletin, 65, no. 4 (Dec. 1983)  JStor

Leo Steinberg, “Resisting Cézanne: Picasso’s Three Women,” Art in America, Part I, 66, no. 6 (1978), and Part II, “The Polemical Part,” 67, no. 2 (1979)   RES Photocopy

            Recommended Reading:

William Rubin, “Pablo and Georges and Leo and Bill,” Art in America, 67, no. 2 (1979)  RES Photocopy

W.Rubin, ed., Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, Exh. Cat., 2 vols, Museum of Modern Art, N.Y., 1989, 1992 (recommended for subsequent classes on Cubism as well)

Section VII –

The Invention of Cubism (1909-12): The “pioneering” of Picasso and Braque; a new mode of representation and its “reading;” the reception of Cubism by critics and other artists

            Required Reading:

Pick one:

John Nash, “The Nature of Cubism: A Study of Conflicting Explanations,” Art History, 3, no. 4 (1980)   Jstor

Edward Fry, “Picasso, Cubism and Reflexivity, “ Art Journal, 47, no. 4 (1988)   Jstor

Yves-Alain Bois, “The Semiology of Cubism,” in Picasso and Braque: A Symposium, eds. Rubin and Zelevansky, MOMA, N.Y., 1992  RES on order/photocopy

            Recommended:

Robert Rosenblum, Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art, N.Y., 2001 revised edition; especially Chapters 1 and 2 RES

Marilyn McCully, ed., A Picasso Anthology: Documents, Criticism, Reminiscences (1981), Princeton, 1997 – especially relevant section on reactions to Cubism   RES

Section VIII -            

“Synthetic” Cubism – The Next Conceptual Step by the “Pioneers” (1912-16): Collage, Papier-collé, and constructed sculpture; variants and departures from Cubism in the later work of Picasso and Braque, and reinterpretations (“misunderstandings?”) of contemporarties

            Required Readings:

            Read both:

Robert Rosenblum, “Picasso and the Typography of Cubism,” in Picasso in Retrospect, ed. R. Penrose and J. Golding, N.Y. and Washington, 1973     RES Photocopy

Christine Poggi, In Defiance of Painting: Cubism, Futurism, and the Invention of Collage, New Haven and London, 1992: Chapter 3, “Frames of Reference: Table and Tabeau in Picasso’s Collages and Constructions”  RES

            Recommending Readings:

Other Chapters in Poggi, esp. Chapter 1, “The Invention of Collage, Papier Collé, Constructed Sculpture and Free-Word Poetry”

Patricia Leighton, Re-Ordering the Universe: Picasso and Anarchism, 1897-1914, Princeton, 1989, Chapter 5, “The Insurrectionary Painter: Anarchism and the Collages, 1912-1914”  RES

Section IX -            

“Neoclassicism” (1914-1924) and Cubist exploits continued: Ingresque drawing, monumentality and the lure of the Mediterranean: A brief trip to Italy and some illustrious friends; Collaboration in theatre and ballet productions from “La Parade” with Cocteau, Satie and Diaghilev, on to the 1920’s; “Cubism” quoted and continued in variant forms- new or not?

Hence:  Olga and Dancers; “La Parade:” Avant-Garde Triumph or Fiasco?;  P and Italy;  P and Modern Music: Satie and Stravinsky; The Cubist as Classicist; Three Women at a Fountain, The Three Musicians…

This period is rather popular, and the subject of the Scuderie exhibition –  more accessible on one level, but hardly “easier” than the earlier phase of Cubism!

            Required Readings:

            Read both:

Phoebe Pool, “Picasso’s Neo-Classicism: Second Period, 1917-25,”Apollo, 81, (February 1965) – just to cover an old but reputable “formalist” approach”  Jstor

ESPECIALLY: Rosalind Krauss, The Picasso Papers, N.Y., 1998, “Picasso/Pastiche,” pp.90 ff (read first 30pp. or so)  RES   -more theoretical, difficult, controversial and interesting.  RES

Recommended Readings:

Richardson, Life of Picasso: 1917-192  , vol. III

Elizabeth Cowling and Jennifer Mundy, On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910-1930, Exh. Cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1990   (Pal. Venezia; ON ORDER JCU)

Marianne Martin, “The Ballet ‘Parade:’ A Dialgoue Between Cubism and Futurism,” Art Quarterly, n.s. I, n.2 (Spring 1978)     RES Photocopy

Michael Fitzgerald, “The Modernist’s Dilemma: Neoclassicism and the Portrayal of Olga Khokhlova,” in Picasso and Portraiture, Exh. Cat., MOMA, N.Y., 1996   RES

Theodore Reff, “Picasso’s Three Musicians: Maskers, Artists and Friends,”Art in America, 68 (Dec. 1980)  RES Photocopy

Section X –

Picasso and Surrealism (late 1920’s and early 1930’s): metamorphic forms, comedy, ferocity, and eroticism. Picasso’s tenuous relationship to the Surrealist circle

            Required Readings:

            Pick one:

Robert Rosenblum, “Picasso and the Anatomy of Eroticism,” in Studies in Erotic Art, ed. Theodore Bowie and Cornelia Christenson, N.Y. and London, 1970  RES

John Golding, “Picasso and Surrealism,”in Picasso in Retrospect, ed. Roland Penrose and John Golding, N.Y. and Washington, 1973  RES Photocopy

                        Recommended Readings:

Elizabeth Cowling, “In Surrealist Company 1924-34,” in Picasso: Style and Meaning, London 2002  RES

M. McCully, ed., A Picasso Anthology (1981), Princeton, 1997 – sections relevant to Surrealism and Picasso (pp. TBA)  RES

Section XI –

War and Politics; Franco and Spain, and Picasso’s political attitudes. Guernica, and the works, personal and political, of the late 30’s; the Weeping Women

Required Readings:

Pick one:

Herschell Chipp, Picasso’s ‘Guernica:’ History, Transformations, Meanings, Berkeley, 1988  - especially Chapters I-V  RES

Recommended Readings:

Rudolf Arnheim, The Genesis of a Painting: Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, Berkeley, 1973  RES

Stephen Nash, ed., Picasso and the War Years 1937-45, San Francisco, 1988 On Order

Judi Freeman, Picasso and the ‘Weeping Women’, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994

RES

Werner Hofmann, “Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ in its Historical Context,” Artibus et historiae, no. 7 (1983)  JStor

Section XII -

Picasso and other artists – the variants on Delacroix, Women of Algiers, and Velazquez, Las Meninas

Required Reading:

Pick one:

Steinberg, “The Algerian Women and Picasso at Large,”in Other Criteria   RES

Susan Galassi, Chapter 5, “Picasso in the Studio of Velazquez,” in Picasso and the Spanish Tradition, ed. Jonathan Brown, New Haven and London, 1996 RES

            Recommended Reading:

            Study reproductions of each series in LPB, assigned readings above.

            Susan Grace Galassi, Picasso’s Variations on the Masters, N.Y., 1996 On Order

LAST LESSONS:

The Late Picasso – New Statements and synthesis, or decline? Critical evaluations, positive and negative of the last production; Myth and backlash

Required Reading:

LPB, pp. 423-479

Pick one:

John Berger, The Success and Failure of Picasso, 1993  (read the first part and sections) RES

Karen Kleinfelder, The Artist, his Model, her Image, his Gaze: Picasso’s Pursuit of the Model, Chicago, 1993 – on P’s graphic art from 1954-70  RES

            Recommended Reading:

Gert Schiff, ed., Picasso: The Last Years, 1963-1973, Exh. Cat., Guggenheim Museum, N.Y. 1983    On order

Gert Schiff, “Picasso’s Suite 347, or Painting as an Art of Love,” Art News, 38 (1972) 

Latter week(s)  - ORAL RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS

Last Class – REVIEW, any other business

FINAL EXAMINATION – To be scheduled during the Examination Period

N.B: Do not make plans to leave Rome before the last day of Finals!!!