PABLO PICASSO, his quotes on painting art and life in Cubism with Braque + biography facts
PABLO PICASSO (1881 – 1973), life facts, biography information and his quotes on painting art in early Cubism with Braque, by the Spanish painter. Picasso started Cubism with Braque in Paris. His most famous paintings became undoubtedly ‘Demoiselles d’Avignon’ 1907 and 1937 ‘Guernica’ as a protest against violence of Spanish fascism. Picasso’s Cubist influence on modern art was huge, for example on early abstract paintings of Piet Mondrian and American Abstract Expressionist artists Gorky and De Kooning. At the bottom more biography facts of Picasso’s life and art. – the editor.
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Pablo Picasso: ‘Still life’, painting 1918 |
Pablo Picasso, his art quotes on painting art and life in Cubism with Braque; + biography facts
- Almost every evening ( around 1908, fh), either I went to Braque’s studio or Braque came to mine. Each of us had to see what the other had done during the day. We criticized each other’s paintings (a comment Picasso gave Francoise Gilot in December 1908, fh)
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721 (information about the Spanish famous artist: art links for more life facts, interview notes and biography at the bottom of the page, including art links, fh)
- In my opinion to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing. Nobody is interested in following a man who, with his eyes fixed on the grounds, spends his life looking for the pocketbook that fortune should put in his path… (Paris 1923).
* source art statements & life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso: ‘Picasso speaks’, text by Marius Zayas, in ‘The Arts’, New York, May 1923 ( Picasso started Cubism in modern art with Georges Braque ans painted the famous ‘Guernica’, fh)
- Among the several sins that I have been accused of committing, none is more false than the one that I have, as the principal objective in my work, the spirit of research. When I paint my object is to show what I have found and not what I am looking for. In art intentions are not sufficient and, as we say in Spanish, love must be proved by facts and not by reasons… (Paris 1923).
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- The idea of research has often made painting go astray, and made the artist lose himself in mental lucubrations. Perhaps this has been the principal fault of modern art. The spirit of research has poisoned those who have not fully understood all the positive and conclusive elements in modern art and has made them attempt to paint the invisible and, therefore, the unpaintable(Paris 1923).
* source art statements & life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on the idea of ‘research’ in modern art: ‘Picasso speaks’, text by Marius Zayas, in ‘The Arts’, New York, May 1923.
- They speak of naturalism in opposition to modern painting. I would like to know if anyone has ever seen a natural work of art. Nature and art, being two different things, cannot be the same thing. Through art we express our conception of what nature is not. Velasquez left us his idea of the people of his epoch. Undoubtly they were different from what he painted them, but we cannot conceive a Philip IV in any other way than the one Velasquez painted… (Paris 1923).
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- And from the point of view of art there are no concrete or abstract forms, but only forms which are more or less convincing lies. That those lies are necessary to our mental selves is beyond any doubt, as it is through them that we form our aesthetic point of view of life. (Paris 1923).
* source art statements & life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on ‘abstract forms’: ‘Picasso speaks’, text by Marius Zayas, in ‘The Arts’, New York, May 1923.
- Cubism is no different from any other school of painting. The same principles and the same elements are common to all. The fact that for a long time cubism has not been understood and that even today there are people who cannot see anything in it, means nothing. I do not read English, an English book is a blank book to me. This does not mean that the English language does not exist… (Paris 1923).
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- I also often hear the word ‘evolution’. Repeatedly I am asked to explain how my painting evolved. To me there is no past or future in my art. If a work of art cannot live always in the present it must not be considered at all. The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was. Art does not evolve by itself, the ideas of people change and with them their mode of expression (Paris 1923).
* source art statements & life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on ‘evolution’ in art: ‘Picasso speaks’, text by Marius Zayas, in ‘The Arts’, New York, May 1923.
- When I hear people speak of the evolution of an artist, it seems to me that they are considering him standing between two mirrors that face each other and reproduce his image an infinite number of times, and that they contemplate the successive images of one mirror as his past, and the images of the other mirror as his future, while his real image is taken as his present. They do not consider that they all are the same images in different planes… (Paris 1923).
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- I do not believe I have used radically different elements in the different manners I have used in my paintings. If the subjects I have wanted to express have suggested different ways of expression, I have never hesitated to adopt them. I have never made trials nor experiments. Whenever I had something to say I have said it in the manner in which I have felt it ought to be said. Different motives inevitably require different methods of expression (Paris 1923).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on using different expressions in his art: ‘Picasso speaks’, text by Marius Zayas, in ‘The Arts’, New York, May 1923.
- Many think that Cubism is an art of transition, an experiment which is to bring ulterior results. Those who think that way have not understood it. Cubism is not either a seed or a fetus, but an art dealing primarily with forms, and when a form is realized it is there to live its own life… …If Cubism is an art of transition I am sure that the only thing that will come out of it is another form of Cubism (Paris 1923).
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- Mathematics, trigonometry, chemistry, psychoanalysis, music, and what not have been related to cubism to give it an easier interpretation. All this has been pure literature, not to say nonsense, which brought bad results, blinding people with theories. Cubism has kept itself within the limits and limitations of painting, never pretending to go beyond it (Paris, 1923).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on Cubist art: ‘Picasso speaks’, text by Marius Zayas, in ‘The Arts’, New York, May 1923.
- What a sad fate for a painter who loves blondes, but who refrains from putting them in his picture because they don’t go with the basket of fruit! What misery for a painter who hates apples to be obliged to use them all the time because they go with the cloth! I put everything I love in my paintings. So much the worse for the things, they have only to arrange themselves with one another (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on ‘things’ in art: interview by Christian Zervos; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 256.
- Formerly pictures used to move towards completion in progressive stages. Each day would bring something new. A picture was a sum of additions. With me, picture is a sum of destructions. I do a picture, then I destroy it. But in the long run nothing is lost; the red that I took away from one place turns up somewhere else (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- It would be very curious to record by means of photographs, not the stage of the picture, but its metamorphoses. Perhaps one would perceive the path taken by the mind in order to put its dreams into a concrete form. But what is really very curious is to observe that fundamentally the picture does not change, that despite appearances the initial vision remains almost intact (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on stages in an art work: interview by Christian Zervos; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 256.
- I often ponder on a light and a dark when I have put them into a painting; I try hard to break them up by interpolating a color that will create a different effect. When the work is photographed, I note that what I put in to correct my first vision has disappeared, and that, after all, the photographic image (still black and white-photo probably, fh) corresponds with my first vision before the transformation I insisted on (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- I would like to manage to prevent people from ever seeing how a picture of mine has been done. What can it possibly matter? What I want is that the only thing emanating from my pictures should be emotion (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on the public: interview by Christian Zervos, 1935; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 256.
- Abstract art is only painting. And what’s so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin with something. Afterwards one can remove all semblance of reality; there is no longer any danger as the idea of the object has left an indelible imprint. It is the object which aroused the artist, stimulated his ideas and set of his emotions. These ideas and emotions will be imprisoned in his work for good… …Whether he wants it or not, man is the instrument of nature; she imposes on him character and appearance. In my paintings of Dinard, as in my paintings of Purville, I have given expression to more or less the same vision… …You cannot go against nature. She is stronger than the strongest of men. We can permit ourselves some liberties, but in details only (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* Picasso on painting, art and Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- Neither is there figurative and non-figurative art. All things appear to us in the shape of forms. Even in metaphysics ideas are expressed by forms, well then think how absurd it would be to think of painting without the imagery of forms. A figure, an object, a circle, are forms; they affects us more or less intensely…(Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on figuration in art: interview by Christian Zervos, 1935; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, pp. 257-258.
- When we did Cubist paintings (the early Cubist period with Georges Braque, fh), our intention was not to produce Cubist paintings but to express what was within us. No one laid down a course of action for us, and our friends the poets (as Appolinaire and Cendral, fh) followed our endeavor attentively but they never dictated it to us (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* Picasso on cubist painting, art and the start of Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- The painter goes through states of fullness and evacuation. That is the whole secret of art. I go for a walk in the forest of Fontainebleau. I get ‘green’ indigestion. I must get rid of this sensation into a picture. Green rules it. A painter paints to unload himself of feelings and visions. People seize on painting to cover up their nakedness. They get what they can wherever they can. In the end I don’t believe they get anything at all. They’ve simply cut a coat to the measure of their own ignorance. They make everything, from God to a picture, in their own image. That is why the picture-hook is the ruination of a painting (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* Picasso on cubist painting, art and the start of Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- Do you think it interests me that this painting represents two figures? These two figures existed, they exist no more. The sight of them gave me an initial emotion, little by little their real presence grew indistinct they became a fiction for me, then they disappeared, or rather, were turned into problems of all kinds. For me they are no longer two figures but shapes and colours, don’t misunderstand me, shapes and colours, though, that sum up the idea of the two figures and preserve the vibration of their (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on representation in his art: interview by Christian Zervos, 1935; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 258.
- The academic teaching on beauty is false. We have been misled, but so completely misled that we can no longer find so much as a shadow of a truth again. The beauties of the Parthenon, the Venuses, the Nymphs, the Narcisusses, are so may lies. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, but what the instinct and the brain can conceive independently of that canon… …To tell the truth the Parthenon is only a truss on which a roof has been placed… (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* Picasso on cubist painting, art and the start of Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- It is not what the artist does that counts. But what he is. Cézanne would never have interested me if he had lived and thought like Jaques-Emile Blanche, even if the apple he had painted had been ten times more beautiful. What interests us is the anxiety of Cézanne, the teaching of Cézanne, the anguish of Van Gogh, in short the inner drama of the man. The rest is false. (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on the anxiety of Cézanne: interview by Christian Zervos, 1935; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 259.
- Everyone wants to understand painting. Why don’t they try to understand the song of the birds? Why do they love a night, a flower, everything which surrounds man, without attempting to understand them? Whereas where painting is concerned, they want to understand. Let them understand above all that the artist works from necessity; that he, too, is a minute element of the world to whom one should ascribe no more importance than so many things in nature which charm us but which we do not explain to ourselves. Those who attempt to explain a picture are on the wrong track most of the time. Gertrude Stein, overjoyed, told me some time ago that she had finally understood what my picture represented: three musicians. It was a still life!! (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* Picasso on cubist painting, art and the start of Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- How can you expect a beholder to experience my picture as I experienced it? A picture comes to me a long time beforehand; who knows how long a time beforehand, I sensed, saw, and painted it and yet the next day even I do not understand what I have done. How can anyone penetrate my dreams, my instincts, my desires, my thought, which have taken a long time to fashion themselves and come to the surface, above all to grasp what I put there, perhaps involuntary (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on the public: interview by Christian Zervos, 1935; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 260.
- You don’t need to show them to me (the notes which Christian Zervos, editor of ‘Cahiers d’Art’ showed Picasso after their conversation at Boisgeloup, his country place that time, fh). The essential thing in our period of weak morale is to create enthusiasm. How many people have actually read Homer? All the same the whole world talks of him. In this way the Homeric legend is created. A legend in this sense provokes a valuable stimulus. Enthusiasm is what we need most, we and the younger generation (Boisgeloup France, 1935).
* Picasso on cubist painting, art and the start of Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is. I’m not crazy about those cocks and asses and flying violinists and all the folklore, but his canvasses are really painted, not just thrown together. Some of the last thing’s he’s done in Vence (where Matisse painted his late frescos in the chapel, fh) convince me that there’s never been anybody since Renoir who has the feeling for light that Chagall has. (reaction to Chagall’s daughter Ida, 1952, fh)
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on color in the art of Matisse and Chagall: a writing of Francoise Gilot; as quoted in “Marc Chagall, – a Biography”, by Sidney Alexander, Cassell, London, 1978, p. 440.
- Academic training in beauty is a sham… …it is not what the artist ‘does’ that counts, but what he ‘is’… …What forces our interest is Cézanne’s anxiety, – that’s Cézanne’s lesson. The torments of Van Gogh – that is the actual drama of the man.
* Picasso on cubist painting, art and the start of Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
- I don’t know where he (Chagall, fh) gets those images; he must have an angel in his head.
* source art life quotes of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, on Chagall’s paintings: “Marc Chagall, – a Biography”, by Sidney Alexander, Cassell, London, 1978, p. 33.
- The artist is a receptacle for emotions derived from anywhere: from the sky, from the earth, from a piece of paper, from a passing figure, from a spider’s web. This is ’s web. This is why one must not make a distinction between things. For them there are no aristocratic quarterings. One must take things where one finds them…
* Picasso on cubist painting, art and the start of Cubism with Braque – source of his quotes, writings and comments: “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311, note 721.
Picasso, his short life facts & biography information of the Spanish artist
Pablo Picasso was an artist of Spanish origin, who created however his art mainly in France; in Paris he started early Cubist painting in Paris around 1908 together with the French Fauvist painter George Braque.
Picasso’s art is often categorized into periods; the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1905–1907), the African-influenced Period (1908–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919). Also Surrealism has influenced Picasso for some years, and the modern abstract art in Paris.
Picasso was born in Spain in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain. Picasso’s family was middle-class; his father was a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds. Picasso’s training under his father began before 1890.
Picasso made his first trip to Paris in 1900. In the early 20th century he divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. By 1905 Picasso became a favorite of the American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein; Gertrude Stein became Picasso’s principal patron, buying drawings and paintings and exhibiting them in her informal Salon at her home in Paris. In 1907 Picasso joined an art gallery that had recently been opened in Paris by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler who became one of the premier French art dealers of the 20th century. He presented Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and the Cubism that they jointly developed around 1908-1914. The two artists exchanged their ideas on Cubism very intense during those years, as the quotes of both artists illustrate very well.
In Paris, Picasso had friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the writer Alfred Jarry, and Gertrude Stein. After World War I, Picasso – when the close relation between him and Braque broke more and more because of Braque’s deadly experience as soldier in the war – Picasso got a number of important relationships with figures associated with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris and others. In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev’s troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Parade.
During the Second World War, Picasso remained in Paris while the Germans occupied the city. He did not exhibit during this time, because of the Nazi’s. Retreating to his studio, he continued to paint art-works such as the Still Life with Guitar (1942) and The Charnel House (1944–48). Probably Picasso’s most famous work is his very large painting ‘Guernica’, an imagination of the German bombing of the village Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. This large canvas embodied the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war and attacked fascism. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, “It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.”. Guernica hung in New York’s Museum of Modern Art for many years. In 1981 the Guernica was returned to Spain and in 1992 the painting hung in Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum when it opened.
In the 1950s, Picasso’s style changed once again, as he painted his ‘reinterpretations’ of the art of the great masters he admired. He made a series of works based on Velazquez’s painting of Las Meninas and also based several of his paintings on famous works by Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and Delacroix. Picasso’s final paintings (after 1963) showed a free and lose mixture of styles; his means of expression stayed in a constant flux until the end of his life in 1973. Late in his life-time Picasso became more and more daring and his art works consequently more colorful, wild and expressive. There appeared also a lot of gesture-work with the oil paint in his paintings. From 1968 through 1971 he produced a lot of these paintings (presented in the Picasso museum in Paris) and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works were dismissed by many people as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or as slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime. After Picasso’s death, when abstract expressionism as a new art style had developed freely in America and Neo-Expressionism in Germany arose already, the art public in France started to recognize in Picasso’s late, colorful paintings a common source and expression. Picasso had adopted as so many times before – in his very personal way – a energetic and rough Neo-expressionism as a worthy farewell gift of a senior artist.
art links for biography information on life & painting art in Cubism by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso
* about life and art of the famous Spanish artist Picasso, starting Cubist painting and collage with Braque in Paris, on Wikipedia
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* art style Cubism, described and explained in short art life quotes
