Picasso and Gjon Mili: drawing with light

In 1939 Mili began dissecting movement with rapid-sequence firing that showed multiple images on a single film frame. Gjon Mili, a technical genius and lighting innovator, visited Pablo Picasso in the South of France in 1949. Mili showed the artist some of his photographs of ice skaters with tiny lights affixed to their skates, jumping in the dark — and Picasso’s lively mind began to race. This series of photographs, since known as Picasso’s “light drawings,” were made with a small flashlight or “light pencil” in a dark room; the images vanished almost as soon as they were created. “Picasso gave Mili 15 minutes to try one experiment,” LIFE, the magazine Mili worked for, wrote in its January 30, 1950, issue in which the images shown here first appeared. He was so fascinated by the results that he posed for five sessions.” The series is a very beautiful collection of the work of the artist and the photographer encounter.

Picasso's Young girl sleeping

Jeune fille endormie "Young girl sleeping" was painted in 1935.
The back and white drawing he did in 1952 is like a revisit to this painting.

Wordless Wednesday: Blind Man's Meal by Picasso

Blind man's meal, 1903

Picasso's blue period: two women

They need silence.

Pablo Picasso the blue period and portrait of Gertrude Stein

Right: The Blind Man's Meal, 1903, by Pablo Picasso Left: Gertrude Stein, 1905–6, by Pablo Picasso The Blind Man's Meal is part of the blue period, 1901 until 1904, a phase where Picasso's work shows loneness, abandonment, desolation and sorrow in a very deep way using all hues of blue. After settling in Paris in 1904 he started changing his colors and motifs. Gertrude Stein, the American poet, used to gather people on Saturdays at her home and many of the intellectuals used to attend to discuss and have fun. This is the story of the portrait of Gertrude Stein:

In her book The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1932), Stein described the making of this picture: "Picasso had never had anybody pose for him since he was sixteen years old. He was then twenty-four and Gertrude had never thought of having her portrait painted, and they do not know either of them how it came about. Anyway, it did, and she posed for this portrait ninety times. There was a large broken armchair where Gertrude Stein posed. There was a couch where everybody sat and slept. There was a little kitchen chair where Picasso sat to paint. There was a large easel and there were many canvases. She took her pose, Picasso sat very tight in his chair and very close to his canvas and on a very small palette, which was of a brown gray color, mixed some more brown gray and the painting began. All of a sudden one day Picasso painted out the whole head. I can't see you anymore when I look, he said irritably, and so the picture was left like that."

Source: Metmuseum

Music, painting and photography - music power

I am learning to play guitar from the first lesson. The tip of the left fingers aches and you have to exercise to create callus and it is strange to start losing sensibility and the muscles of the left hand have to adjust itself to make the chords. It is a little bit boring at the beginning since you have to learn to change from one chord to another quickly and do it as faster as possible. But if you keep thinking in the future when this phase is over and you will finally be able to have the music in your mind and the positions of your hands at the guitar together you keep going. I was thinking about putting some paintings of guitar players showing different kinds of feeling portrayed by the artist that makes me think about the different emotions music can trigger but came across with this photograph by James O'Donnell and though that it was a great combination of three arts. I remembered of what Picasso used to say about the geniality and inspiration myth:

"Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working." "There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun."

And the famous Thomas Edison quotation:

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

I will go back to practice. Maybe next year I will be able to play something easy of one of many musicians I like. An amazing fact about people who play an instrument is that it is the last memory a person who suffers Alzheimer lose. They forget their parents but for a long period can play. This is something special about the musical language. Music unites people. This is a great achievement.

Musicians by Caravaggio and Picasso - music and painting

Right: Three Musicians, 1921, Picasso Left: The Musicians, 1595-96, by Caravaggio There is a good test about the theme music in arts at this page. "One can almost hear the music." Here is the list they did of paintings whose theme is music:

Works

A Christmas Carol (Dante Gabriel Rossetti) A Lute Player (Edwin Austin Abbey) A Sea Spell (Dante Gabriel Rossetti) A Tale from Decameron (John William Waterhouse) Allegory of Music (Jean-François de Troy) Ancient Sound, Abstract on Black (Paul Klee) At the Opera (Mary Cassatt) Ball at the Moulin de la Galette (Pierre-Auguste Renoir) Boy Playing a Flute (Judith Leyster) Buffoon Playing a Lute (Frans Hals) Carousing Couple (Judith Leyster) Concert Champêtre (Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater) Contrasting Sounds (Wassily Kandinsky) El Jaleo (John Singer Sargent) Girl Sewing (Mary Cassatt) Golden Hours (Lord Frederic Leighton) Golden Stairs (Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones) Grandpa's Little Ballerina (Norman Rockwell) Juene Fille a la Mandoline (Pablo Ruiz y Picasso) La Boheme (Jamie Wyeth) La Danse à la Ville (Pierre-Auguste Renoir) Ladies Concert at the Philharmonic Hall (Francesco Guardi) Lute Player (Michelangelo Merisi (Caravaggio)) Lydia in a Loge Wearing a Pearl Necklace (Mary Cassatt) Merry Trio (Judith Leyster) Mezzetin (Jean-Antoine Watteau) Music (Henri Matisse) Music - Pink and Blue II (Georgia O'Keeffe) Musician's Table (Juan Gris) Piano Lesson (Romare Bearden) Singer (Everett Shinn) Still Life with Harp and Violin (Georges Braque) The Awakening Conscience (William Holman Hunt) The Cellist (Amadeo Modigliani) The Concert (Johannes Vermeer) The Concert (Judith Leyster) The Dance of the Almeh (Jean Léon Gérôme) The Dancer Camargo (Nicolas Lancret) The Grand Turk Giving a Concert to his Mistress (Charles-André van Loo) The Lament (Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones) The Music Lesson (Gerard ter Borch) The Musicians (Michelangelo Merisi (Caravaggio)) The Old Guitarist (Pablo Ruiz y Picasso) Tribute to Mozart (Raoul Dufy) Venetian Ladies Listening to the Serenade (Frank Cadogan Cowper) Veronica Veronese (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

Note that Kandinsky is at the list. I will do a special post about his relation to music.

Women and Mirrors - Degas, Kirchner and Picasso

Top: Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917), The Dancing Class (ca. 1870). Bottom left: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner(German, 1880-1938), Woman at the Mirror (1912). Bottom right: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1882-1973), Girl Before a Mirror (1932)