PAGE
35:
Evocation (The Burial of Casagemas). 1901 L Evocation ( Enterrement de Casagemas) '
cm
Oil on canvas, 150.5 x 90.5 Paris,
Musee d'Art Moderne de
la Ville
de Paris
The Death of Casagemas (Casagemas
in
His Coffin), 1901
La Mort de Casagemas (Casagemas dans son cercueil) Oil on cardboard. 72.5 x 57.8
cm
Estate of the artist
phere and the dreariness of alcohol. The painting's meaning also
lies in the
autonomy of formal means. The erosion of defined spatiality, the abandoning of perspective construction, is only the most striking of several interesting features. tional
must be taken together with the accentuation of composi-
It
fundamentals such as plenitude and emptiness, density and weight,
emphasis and
its
lack.
Ex-centricity and centralization were constants in this period. The Blind
Man Meal 's
(p.
40) has a blind
man up
against the right of the composition,
reaching across the table with unnaturally elongated arms, so that the rest of the picture
seems somehow
monochromatic blue
is
to be in his
embrace or province. The radically
married to a kind of formal crisscross procedure: the
composition uses striking echo techniques, the pallor
neck answered by parts of the
in the blind
table, the paler blue patches
on
corresponding to the pale blues on the rear wall. Though there line
man's
his clothing is
no clear
of evolution, certain Blue Period motifs and formal groupings do recur.
In essence,
seated
Picasso was working within a limited range:
at tables,
alone or
in
men and women
twos, meals being eaten, figures crouching or
hugging themselves as they stand or
people with head
sit,
in
hand or arms
crossed - this modest repertoire, in variations, accounts for the Blue Period
work.
Of course,
if
there
were no more
to
no longer have any particular reason
it,
to
those with no prior interest would
be interested
in these pictures. In fact
Picasso was a master of intensifying contrast and evocative effects. His mastery
came from
and thematic antecedents,
his assured grasp of certain formal
and of the various media (such as drawing, graphics or liest
etchings was The Frugal Repast
(p. 42).
masterpieces of 20th-century printed graphic line
done
in
art. In
etching resembles his handling of colour tones
black /.ones fade to grey and to bright
clarity.
As
in
paint).
One of his
ear-
1904 and one of the
it.
Picasso's approach to
in the paintings.
Velvety
The Blind Man's Meal
Picasso plays with formal correspondences; but the cylindrical thinness of 34
The Death oj Casagemas. Iai Mort </< Casagemas Oil on panel. 27 X 35 Paris.
Musee Picasso
cm
l l
H)l