My Recreation of "Girl with Mandolin" by Pablo Picasso...Recreation by Artist Shawn L. Howell Sr.

                                          

 History of Cubism 

     Cubism was born out of the co-operative interaction and collaboration between Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque after meeting in 1907. The art movement known as "Cubism" arose due to the need to represent and be able to define their new modern reality. This new reality was complex shaped by new ideas and inventions, philosophical speculation and cultural diversity. All of a sudden man was thrust into a world of expanding visions and horizons; furthermore, the ambiguity and sense of uncertainty generated by this new rush of stimuli was interpreted by the theory of relativity that evolved through F.H. Bradley, Whitehead, Einstein, and the new Mathematics. What these philosophical theoreticians suggested was that we live in a world of shifting perspectives, where the appearance of objects is in constant flux depending on the point of view from which it was seen. Finally, the experience of reality was being altered by the cultural interactions taking place between the east and west, the primitive and the industrialized. In other words, each culture brought along with it a new, idiosyncratic way of looking at things, and the interchange occurring between cultures obscured the perception of truth. Relativity became everything. 

     The problem facing the modern artist became how to formally depict this new vision of life. For the painter; specifically,  the dilemma became representing the flux of time, motion and space in a medium that lent itself to the mere capture of the fleeting moment. Cubism was born as a response to this predicament, and it is no accident that the movement was a Parisian phenomenon, considering the city's artistic legacy and it's magnetic ability to attract the most gifted young artist's and writers from all over the world. Paris offered them great art museums, a tradition of moral and artistic freedom, and an artistic bohemia where they could live cheaply on the margin of bourgeois society. Perhaps we can say that Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon ushered in a revolutionary way of depicting reality. This landmark painting had broken all of the traditional rules that artist's at the time followed, especially the one that defined art as imitation rather than creation. Picasso had decided to turn his back on a fixed point of view and harmonious proportion, concepts that had been religiously practiced since the Renaissance. Instead he replaced these with multiple perspectives and distortion. Further more he incorporated into his painting's references to primitive art, a practice that ran counter to the ceremonious adulation of the whole continuum of Western art. For most people, Les demoiselles was a desecration of everything that had been held sacred. Fortunately, Picasso's rebelliousness cleared the air for what was to come: a freedom to create rather than imitate and to construct a new pictorial language.

Information Retrieved from: http://www.mdc.edu/Wolfson/Academic/Artsletters/art_philosophy/Humanities/Cubism/cubism%20front2.htm

Subjective Critique

     My initial reaction to Picasso's "Girl with Mandolin" is a feeling of overused rigidity in the explanation of multi-dimensionality; although, very effective in it's three dimensional Cubism form. When I look at this piece, I feel as though the beginnings of the 8 bit understanding are being developed subconsciously. The boxed rigidity of the female form for me creates a very male and hard boxed feeling and; although, the form is clearly feminine I feel that it represents a very male dominated opinion of science. I don't mind the earth tone color palette, but I do think the piece would be much more interesting with some color. In my recreation, I plan on smoothing out the feminine image and try to create an almost realistic render adding elements of Picasso's Cubism. I also believe the message of the painting can be updated and used to speak loudly in this day and age. 

Objective Critique

     In Picasso's "Girl with Mandolin" the use of a repetitive blocked squares along the right side of the female mandolin players shoulder and arm give representation of an mandolin player moving through what the artist represent as 4 dimensional space. The use of the darker value brownish black; plus, beige brown, tan, orange,and red tones mixed blend together with light blue add an interesting color balance throughout the whole piece. The use of shadow behind the skewed depiction of the mandolin players waist, breast, shoulder, arm and backside add interesting light helping the mandolin form more into the third dimension. The head and face also seem to be lifting off the page as the artist used  a flatter 2 Dimensional representation along the left side of the mandolin players body with much less rigidity protruding from the page as displayed on the right. The left arm playing the mandolin fret board  from dimension to dimension adds some interesting contrast between the blue and darker color   browns against the rigid lighter reddish brown, orange of the hand. For me this piece explains well the idea of dimensionality.

Three Prepro Sketches

Rough Draft Final

Final

Compare and Contrast

                                           

In my reimagining of Picasso's "Girl with Mandolin" I tried to incorporate several similar ideas. The first is trying to keep a muddy kind of color blend; although, Picasso's color contrast is brighter and more earth tone. I tried to keep a basic cubism idea by keeping the squared background to the right of the girl with mandolin. The differences are that I added a vortex and random bits of blocks and atoms are floating about. The composition was enlarged to add the extra piece's and I wish I had a little more time to finish and to come up with another color scheme for a major part of the composition. I may have finished the majority for this blog and assignment but I am not finished with this piece by a long shot. I think after a little more experimentation and a little more color play I will have this piece exactly where I want it to be. I wanted a more realism look but the piece and my hand still need some work!

Thank You for your time!!!