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Customer Reviews of Picasso

Stein and Picasso: ..., Getting Modernism: Priceless
In this epochal gem originally published in London in 1938, Gertrude Stein tells of the arrival and rise of Picasso, and through him, Modernism and the 20th century, filtered through her own performance art. By "filtered" I am not suggesting that it is fiction or distorts its subject; in fact, it's a live action postcard from the epicenter of the man and movement. Not only does it inform with fact, it informs with form.

Stein says with characteristic self assurance that she alone understood Picasso and compared what he did in art to what she did with words, and there is merit in the comparison. Picasso, influenced by the Spaniards, came to believe that truth existed in the conceptual realm, it did not come from the material world. Whereas proceeding generations accepted what they saw before them as truth and responded realistically, Picasso chose to portray his inner vision on canvas and backed away from using models. Cubism became his way of signifying how he experienced the significance of the still life or human form. A person, a tableau was not perceived as the whole but as parts, some of them standing out more prominently than others. Similarly, Stein orders her information according to emphasis, with her characteristic tic of repetition--remember, this is the person who gave us lines like "A rose is a rose is a rose" and "there is no there, there."

Stein does not overindulge herself, however, and imparts a generous amount of lucid thought on how Picasso created and from what and whom he drew his influences. She progresses chronologically through his periods-the blue, the rose, the harlequin, Cubist, calligraphic, etc., up to the point she was writing. This plus salient insights into society, war, creative artists and the 20th century in general make the volume quite a deal in a small package.

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Seeing The World Through The Eyes Of An Infant
As has been written elsewhere (Try Hemingway's A MOVEABLE FEAST, for instance) Gertrude Stein possessed a tremendous ego. She did not express opinions, she stated facts even when the basis for her facts existed only in her head. She also had the irksome habit of repeating the same information many times, often approaching it from slightly different directions. Again, I am certainly not the first to comment on this peculiarity of her writing. That this book is filled with examples of both of the above does not take away from its excellence in revealing much about Picasso and his art.

Stein's fame comes more from her position in the intellectual and artistic community of early to mid twentieth century Paris than from her ability as a writer or poet. It was because of this position that she came to know Picasso so well, and it was as an outgrowth of this personal relationship that this book came to be written.

One area that I found very informative in PICASSO was Stein's analysis of the alternating influences of Picasso's Spanish soul, Paris, and Spain itself, on the various periods of Picasso's artistic development. In this respect, Stein contrasts Spain and France in the following manner: Spain was a sad country with a monotony of coloring while France was the country of Toulouse-Lautrec with vivid colors and images.

With that as a background, she introduced Picasso, as a young man in Spain, painting realistic works in the late nineteenth century manner. This was followed by his first visit to Paris during which he was influenced by the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec. (See illustration #3, "In the Cafe") He then returned to Spain in 1902, staying until 1904. During this period, his temperament returned to that of his native Spain and he produced the darker, more somber paintings of his "blue period." This period ended with his return to Paris in 1904. Throughout the balance of PICASSO, Stein traced his painting cycles and the people and experiences that influenced them.

Picasso revealed to Stein, and she passed on to us, one of the main secrets of his later styles. He saw as a very young child saw, and painted what he saw through those infantile eyes. An infant sees what it sees from very close up and, consequently, only sees one or two of its mother's features at a time. An infant can't focus at a distance and probably couldn't recognize its own mother from across a room. That infant would probably recognize an eye or a nose, or one or two other features. That same child would probably only recognize its mother in profile, and only from one side at that, i.e., left or right profile, but not both. This was the vision that Picasso brought to his art: a recognizable eye, a nose in profile, and these not necessarily connected in any way that makes sense to the eye of an adult viewer. It was one of the geniuses of Picasso that he could utilize this vision in his art, and it was as a gift that Gertrude Stein let us in on the secret.

I have visited the Picasso museums in Barcelona and Paris, and through their displays, have traced Picasso's evolution as an artist. Neither museum was as instructive relative to Picasso's thought processes as was this small book with its many black and white illustrations. For having providing these insights, I can forgive Gertrude Stein for all her mannerisms and displays of ego.

Much more information about Picasso and the literary and artistic personages of his era can be gained by reading this book. I do recommend it.

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A brief life of Picasso by the gatekeeper of Modernism
Gertrude Stein's fifty-odd page remembrance of Pablo Picasso is brief in page length only. Her convolved writing style challenges the reader to think within the context of Picasso's own creative processes. This is not a quick read, but I was struck by how Stein had her finger on the pulse of Picasso's drive and desire in painting. Her scope is concerned with the Red and Blue Periods and the start of Picasso's role in the invention of Cubism. As much of a literary challenge as it is a close reading of several important Picasso paintings, including Stein's own famous portrait.