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Video: The secret of the popularity of Picasso's painting "Girl on the Ball": The history of the painting and the play of contrasts
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
One of the most famous paintings by Picasso, along with "Guernica" - "Girl on a Ball" - was written in 1905. "Girl on a Ball" marks the end of the "blue" period in the work of Pablo Picasso and the beginning of a new one, which the researchers called "pink".
A masterpiece of the "pink" period
The painful "blue" period gave way to a positive, lively and lyrical "pink". Such a striking metamorphosis in the nature of Picasso's work was caused by her acquaintance with the green-eyed beauty Fernanda, with whom the artist had strong feelings. Picasso met her in Paris in 1904. Fernanda Olivier is a fashion designer, a woman with whom Picasso had the longest-lasting relationship (7 years).
At this time, Picasso's canvases are becoming more optimistic and lighter. If the "blue" period was marked by hunger, cold, poverty and misery, grief and sadness, then in the new period smiles and signs of fun appear. At this time, the artist was a frequent visitor to the Medrano circus. Harlequins, wandering actors and acrobats become characters in his paintings. It is worth noting that Picasso was not alone in choosing the subject of his paintings: at the beginning of the century, many artists used the motif of circus performers, feeling a kind of spiritual closeness with them. Picasso captivates the life of circus performers: on the one hand, romantic and free, on the other - poor and hungry (echoes of the "blue" period).
Plot
On the canvas "Girl on a Ball", Picasso depicted a wandering troupe of acrobats. In the center of the artist's composition is a gymnast girl and an athlete. The figure of the girl is gracefully curved. She raised her hands to keep balance. The athlete sits motionless, his powerful body is full of calm. In the background there are figures of a woman with a child, a dog and a snow-white horse. An image of a bare desert or steppe was chosen as a background (it absolutely does not correspond to the circus theme). Thus, the artist emphasizes that the life of these people consists not only of fun, jubilation and applause from the audience. In their lives, there is poverty, illness, and lack of funds.
Game of contrasts
What do viewers see in the picture? A play of contrasts: the lightness and flexibility of a young girl balancing on a ball oppose the massiveness and stability of the cube on which the giant athlete sits. It is generally accepted that Picasso's main artistic tool is form, which is also evident in this work (ball and cube). The girl's flexible, rounded movements, repeating the shape of a ball, are in clear contradiction with the square, muscular shape of a person sitting on a cube.
Composition
The artist is attracted by plastic, which contributes to the creation of harmony in the composition of the painting, which is solved in an amazing way. Two figures balance the picture, showing an invisible, inextricable connection. Although the views of the main characters do not overlap, it seems that they can only exist together. Indeed, if the viewer for a moment imagines a girl balancing without the tacit support of a circus performer, she can instantly lose her balance, slipping off the ball. And if you exclude the girl gymnast, then the presence of a strong man will be meaningless. A man's leg bent at a right angle is figuratively perceived as a support for the fragile figure of a girl. The magic that pervades the work of the great master is based on balance, contrasts, lighting, harmony of colors. The picture amazes with a pleasant pastel light palette - it is a pink-blue color with beige tones. The main method of plotting is the dark line.
The predecessor of cubism
The whole "construction" of the picture is permeated with antonyms - a heavy strong man and a flexible graceful girl, a cube and a ball, detailed by the close foreground and the farthest back edge. This famous work may be the forerunner of Cubism - the painting is distinguished by an amazing combination of geometric shapes of objects and human figures.
Delicate pearl, pink and blue tones, a new sense of air and space make "Girl on a Ball" one of the masterpieces of the "pink" period of Pablo Picasso. The softly lit girl looks fragile, petite, ephemeral. The harshly lit man looks muscular, dignified, grounded. She is heaven. Or water. He is earth or stone. And they really cannot exist without each other.
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