Introduction
Pablo Picasso, born in Spain in 1881 learnt his art at the Barcelona school of fine arts at a tender age of 14. His father was a master in the art of drawing and because of this he received early recognition. His painting styles throughout his career were always changing characterized by different shades of colors. He went from shades of blue to shades of pink. Picasso passed on after a prostate operation in 1973. On the other hand, Amadeo Modigliani was born in 1884 in a Jewish family and got his education in Venice and Florence. He studied the works of Botticelli. He worked with a sculptor known as Brancusi Constantin.
Various people who believed that in order to be creative enough influenced Amadeo Modigliani’s art through the tutorage of his maternal grandfather, Isaco Garsin. They believed that one had to be disorderly and defiant. Such persons include Nietzche, Carducci de Lautreamount, and Baudelaire among others. According to letters he wrote in 1901 from his sabbatical, there is clear evidence that he was been influenced by Nietzsche. He advised his friend Oscar Ghiglia to seek behaviors that excite and exalt his intelligence as a way of provoking the fertile stimuli in order to maximize his creativity. Lautreamount was influential during Amadeo’s early ages. His works in poetry were characterized by sadistic imagery and juxtaposition of fantastical elements. All these interested Amadeo in his teen ages, which showed that he was developing great taste in his interests. In his works, there is evidence of influence of Cambodia and African art. African tribal masks were all present in his works. The faces of his paintings also resembled Egyptians paintings. He also adored radical philosophies and bohemian lifestyle (Reward 102).
Pablo Picasso
Pablo believed that women are machines made to suffer and that there are two kinds of women, doormats and goddesses. He greatly abused and used his women. Each of the women he had represented a certain period. In two women running on the beach, the portrait is characterized by traditional religious connotations. The late 18th century and early 19th century was characterized by neoclassicism and the revival of classical motifs decorations and subjects. After visiting Pompeii and Italian museums full of classic art, it was apparent that their influence was felt more during the post war period than any other time. Pre war excesses and a violent origin of expressionism and cubism inspired art to great heights. The portrait displays abundance and love suggesting that people ought to abandon the war and live life. The vivid blues and the free flowing hair with supple yet contorted limbs reveal all that.
Picasso had two wives and four children from three women. He always made paintings based on his women. He created a lot of them with the artist model Fernande Olivier. They were together for seven years even though she was already married to another man. Picasso was able to convince her not to model for any other artists but only him. After Fernande came Eva, Marcelle Humbert. This one died at an early age after which Picasso painted a “I love Eva” portrait. Later he met Olga Khokhlova in a ballet after which they married in the Russian Orthodox Church in Paris (Picasso 254). They were ever in conflicts due to their different lifestyles. They bore Paul who helped in the transformation of his works imagery from mother to child. He later met Marie Therese and they got a daughter and named her Maria de la concepcion on the October of 1935. Marie became frustrated when Picasso fell in love with Dora Maar. However, Marie inspired Picasso’s great work in Vollard Suite etchings. Picasso as his private mule referred Dora and she died poor and alone. After Dora, Francoise Gilot who was born in 1921 became the next wife. However, they did not stay long before she got tired of his affairs and abuse. They separated in1953 after which she got married to Jonas Salk in 1955. At 70, he had an affair with Genevieve, 24 years old. She refused to move to St. Tropez with him and left him. However, she took twenty of the drawings he had made of her and hid them in a safe. She later auctioned them in 2005. He then met Jacquelin during the late years of his life. He made many drawings based on her, more than any of his other wives.
The weeping woman portrait is brilliantly colored and highly stylized of a woman struck by grief. The face, hat, head and handkerchief are complexly rendered and colored in planes of red, white, green, blue, and mauve with black outlines. The sitters face is treated abstractly with fanciful eye descriptions. However, one can notice it is the face of Dora Maar (Christopher 80).
Conclusion
Picasso is considered one of the most illustrious painters of the 20th century with more than 50,000 paintings, sculptors and ceramics. However, he lived a controversial life with some of his wives committing suicide. Amadeo also lived controversially drinking himself and stripping in public severally. However, he died young and his wife-committed suicide a year later.
Works cited
Cowling, Elizabeth, and Pablo Picasso. Picasso: Style and Meaning. London: Phaidon, 2002. Print.
Green, Christopher, and Pablo Picasso. Picasso: Architecture and Vertigo. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Print.
Noble, Marty. Art Masterpieces to Color: 60 Great Paintings from Botticellli to Picasso. Mineola, N.Y: Dover Publications, 2004. Print.
Picasso, Pablo, Gary Tinterow, Susan A. Stein, Magdalena Dabrowski, Lucy Belloli, and Christel Hollevoet. Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010. Print.
Rewald, Sabine, and William S. Lieberman. Twentieth-century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. Print.
