Saturday, May 26, 2007

MATISSE vs. PICASSO


I don't expect readers to like these pictures. They're not really the best work of these artists. Even so, they're useful for illustrating one of the most intense rivalries in the history of art and for showing how competition stimulates artistic growth.

Usually the back and forth started with Matisse. He'd paint something and Picasso would try to top it. Matisse had a reputation for being drastic and cutting edge and and that's the way Picasso wanted to be regarded. What better way than to take whatever the most drastic artist did and do something similar that's even more drastic?


Here (above) Picasso takes the Matisse picture of the woman surrounded by pattern (topmost) and does his own, even more stylized version of the same subject. It's not one of Picasso's best, in fact, it's kitsch in my opinion. The picture has no conviction. It's drastic for the sake of being drastic.

I imagine that Matisse must have been mad when he saw it. How irritating to have someone following you up, repainting your pictures in their own shallow "look-at-me" style.


Or maybe Matisse wasn't mad. He's on record as having exchanged pictures with Picasso and he was always enquiring about his health. Maybe Matisse valued the stimulus of the competition.


Eventually Picasso's knock-offs became more and more confidant, so much so that Matisse would sometimes copy Picasso. Compare the Matisse (black and white above) with Picasso (immediately above). Somehow Picasso made the knock-offs into a coherent style. Well, whatever works.


In an effort to out-do his imitator Matisse sometimes went to far. In the picture above Matisse tries to be mathematical and cold like Picasso and succeeds too well in a sense. This picture has none of the warmth we normally associate with Matisse.


Picasso (the picture above), on the other hand, for once succeeds in being more warm and appealing than Matisse. Amazing!

The reason I put these pictures up was to suggest that we can learn something from their painters' rivalry. Maybe it's a good idea to pick an illustrious target and try to beat him at his own game. The idea isn't to steal another person's ideas but to use them as a springboard to create your own ideas. Sometimes new ideas have to form around the nucleus of an old idea.

I hope I don't create monster copiests by talking like this. I used the word "copy" to describe what Picasso did but as you can see from the examples, Picasso did a lot more than copy. The man was heavily influenced but he didn't steal.

9 comments:

  1. In a world of mirror image, copy cat blogs it is a genuine pleasure and delight to see a cartoonist consider that there there are other things we could be thinking about beyond cartoons.

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  2. Anonymous4:25 AM

    This is my favorite post you've made so far, Eddie. Kudos! :)

    Very interesting subject.

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  3. Fantastic, I didn't know it very well could have gone that far! I always thought of Picasso as a sort of dangerous, arrogant showboater.

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  4. Eddie, You are so right about how competition can be a good thing. Especially this kind of competition, which both parties can win! (I guess that means that "win" doesn't really apply here.) Anyway, this is a very interesting example of the principle, and new to me.

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  5. Anonymous3:56 PM

    Do another post on Kliban!!!

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  6. Anonymous3:58 PM

    Fans of the Matisse v. Picasso thing (and Gertrude Stein and Gaugin and so on, should check out Nick Bertozzi's "The Salon" ISBN 0312354851.

    It's a bit of a fantasy, based on a bit of fact,(do you know enough to sort fact from fiction?) but Pablo is pretty a pretty funny character throughout.

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  7. Heres an idea for a friendly competition: (for a worthy cause) I'm painting a little get well card for Bo Diddley who is recovering from a recent stroke. I'll post it on my blog when finished. Anyone else wishing to do the same may snailmail your art to the address below. thanks, Steve

    --
    Please write to him in c/o his Management at the following address:

    Bo Diddley
    c/o Talent Consultants International Ltd.
    105 Shad Row, 2nd Floor
    Piermont, NY 10968

    Thank you so much.

    Regards,

    David Blakey, Webmaster,
    BO DIDDLEY-The Originator
    http://members.tripod.com/~Originator_2/index.html
    A Celebration of his unique contribution to Popular Music.

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  8. Thanks Eddie. This is an excellent post. Picasso seems to have done this with several other artists. The Museum of Modern Art had a big show about the Picasso/Braque thing. There's also a nasty competition between Picasso and Cocteau. At one point Picasso made a big point of giving Cocteau a gift of a sculpture he had done. It was a sculpted turd that Cocteau was confused at receiving.

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  9. Anonymous8:43 AM

    The Museum of Modern Art in S.F. has a show about Picasso's Art in America. The idea is to show how Picasso influenced American artists. In one room they feature a Picasso painting "Woman with a straw hat and blue leaves". Then, a whole bunch of Jasper Johns paintings that were clearly inspired by that one piece. The same elements repeated over and over again.

    I'm ashamed to say the word "rip-off" came to mind. It has something to do with "originality" that is stuck in my head. There is something wrong with my attitude toward art. Maybe artists need to do a certain amount of copying just to absorb a lesson.

    Why is it when two "ant movies" are released, the bloggers and forum writers get all up in arms about "lack of imagination". Maybe it's an opportunity for the audience to experience different takes on the same topic. It may have to do with "popular" art vs. "fine" art. Maybe fine artists are allowed more copying. Popular work needs to be more fresh to keep the public amused.

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