Picasso's Influence on Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons - Essay Example

"The Influence of Picasso and Cubism on Gertrude Stein's "Tender Buttons"" Introduction Art is ive and has no boundaries; it is a human activity that is made to stimulate human senses and mind. It can be an action, an object or a means of conveying emotions and ideas. It is a human creativity that has quality and brings about stimulation. It is considered better if it has impact on people, relates to a lot of people, convey meaning and is associated with the past. Most of the artworks have all the attributes in them and are called the masterpieces. Not everything is considered "art" if it has the purpose of only stimulating senses or has some other primary reason. A painting may be a true art but a chair to sit on is an artistic element. Art which has less functional values is called fine arts while the objects which serve the functional purpose are called craft. At one time period art has been considered to primarily depict the ideas of truth and beauty. Art when used to convey beauty has also helped in creating awareness in people, has helped them to fight for their right, has shown them where the world is heading and how to make it a better place for our next generation. Hence art has been used to convey meaning and is not just used for pleasure. Awareness and enthusiasm has been created in people through various forms of art. It could be poetry, painting, a novel, a song, a sculpture, an act of drama; art can be of any form and can convey meaning in anyway though its should be understood, then only it has its worth and serves its purpose. There have been many artists who have served the people through their work and Picasso and Gertrude stein are amongst them. Picasso has served during the Spanish Civil War and Stein had taught people that the surrounding interacts with individual and convey meaning. Both these artists had interest in cubism; Picasso used it in his paintings while Stein had used it in her writings. Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in Spain on October 25, 1881 and died on April 8, 1973. He was a Spanish painter and sculptor, a well known figure for his work. He is also best known as the co-founder of cubism along with Georges Braque. Picasso being a famous artist has seen many phases in life; he has faced severe poverty where he had to burn of his work to provide warmth to himself and he had also seen high times when his work had become famous after he had started signing his work with only 'Picasso' rather than 'Pablo Ruiz y Picasso'. During the time he was famous he had attend dinners and parties with rich and elite class people and have had many women in his life. During 1909 and 1919 Picasso along with Braque developed Analytic Cubism and Synthetic Cubism. Analytic Cubism is a style of painting using monochrome brownish colors while Synthetic Cubism is a development of Cubism in which pieces of newspaper or wallpaper are pasted into the composition making use of collage in fine art. During the First and Second World War and Spanish Civil War Picasso remained neutral but he supported the idea through his paintings. During the Spanish Civil War, Picasso living abroad had voluntarily participated by expressing his anger and condemnation of Franco and Fascists through his work. He supported the Catalan independence movement and became a member of the Communist Party. Picasso became a loyal member of French Communist Party in 1944 and attended an international peace conference in Poland. In 1950 he received a Stalin Peace Prize from the government and the Stalin portrait depicted that his interest in the communist politics had become low though he remained a faithful member of the communist party until his death. [2] Cubism Cubism is a twentieth century art movement that has changed the European painting; it was very significant in France during 1907 and 1914. It has been founded by both Picasso and Braque. The artist depicts the subject from many sides and shows a greater context while cubist artworks include broken up objects which are analyzed and re-arranged. Mainly the objects intersect at random angles showing no link and coherence. Cubism includes breaking the painted surface into small complicated areas of paint and emphasizing the broader viewpoint by a large vision. It also involves in including natural shapes like cylinders, pyramids and cubes. The cubists opened a new way of art and looking at reality by showing all the visible faces of the object in one single plane depicting many possible ways to see a scenario. The active participants of this art were Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris, who were the main inventors and the work had particularly been developed and promoted by Picasso and Braque. The art critics named it as 'bizarre cubiques' and after seeing the picture by Braque, it was said that they were full of small cubes. The name gained its popularity then though the inventors of the art did not accept the name at first. Cubism had been promoted by many art dealers and was taken up by many artists though they were all not in the same track as Picasso and Braque that is they did not use it as the inventor had the intentions. The Cubist movement was very significant and in 1913 Cubism was brought to United States at famous Armory Show in New York. [1] There are two types of Cubism: Analytical Cubism: It included analyzing the natural form of and reducing them into geometric parts on a two dimension picture plane where colors were mainly not used and the only color used were grey, blue and ocher. Instead of focusing on the colors and shades the artist concentrated on the shapes like sphere and cylinder to shown the similarity in the natural world. Synthetic Cubism: It had been the first time that the collage had been used in the work of fine art. The first work was of Picasso in this new style which was 'Still Life with Chair-caning'. It mainly included oil cloth pasted on the canvas. Many cubist paintings appeared with the letters 'JUO' which meant clipping from the newspaper journal and at the same time meant game in French. Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein was an American writer who has helped in pacing up the modern art and literature. She was born in February 3, 1874 in Pennsylvania and died at the age of 72 from stomach cancer on July 2, 1946. She attended Radcliffe College and after graduating in 1897 she studied embryology at the Marine Biological Laboratory followed by two years in Johns Hopkins Medical School which she left without obtaining her degree. Picasso being a friend of Stein made a portrait of her in 1906. She along with her brother compiled the first collection of the Cubist and modern art. She volunteered in the First World War by driving and providing supplies to the French hospital and they were later honored by the French government. She had a very large circle of friends and promoted herself very well. She had a good judgment in art and literature which was very effective. She was completely against the jobless people and regarded them as lazy. She has a monument of her standing in NewYork at the Upper Terrace of the Bryant Park. Her work included writing novels, plays, stories and poems. She had developed a playful, repetitive and humorous style, an example could be 'Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose'. The conscious experimentation with words was to evoke the feeling of experience something pure and true and was in accordance with Cubism in literature. Many of her experimental works like 'Tender Buttons' have been criticized and are the reason for her indefinable success. She has shared aims, real meaning in all her work which was of great significance. She stressed at presenting the thing at present by using present tense and by transforming it and had done it playfully. Stein used words in her work as if every work mattered as the other in it context. She had a subjective relationship with words and believed that it is more than just a viewpoint and one should go deep down the sense of equality to know what is important. She used many Anglo-Saxon words, a few Latin-based words and avoided using words which had so many associations. She did not play upon anger, anxiety or fear which ad set her work apart from the others and had left it upon the readers to decide how they have felt about the work as it lacked social judgment which was left on the reader. Stein created her work for the present by using present tense through out her work. Instead of simply manipulating emotions her work was funny having various layers which allowed many possible interpretations. Gertrude Stein worked half an hour everyday and wrote longhand. Her work was collected, typed and published which was generally supported and were dealt by Alice Toklas. Her book 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas' had been her famous work and one of the reasons for making her become rich. She was extremely confident of herself which people said was arrogance and people were convinced that she was a genius. [4] Gertrude Stein's "Tender Buttons" 'Tender Buttons' is an outgrowth of Gertrude Stein's writings, which was well known, most often printed and well liked. It was a part of 'A Long Gay Book' which also include 'Objects', 'Foods' and 'Rooms' as the other three sections. It had a meaning which was to hit on the button was criticized as difficult to understand as it has too many meaning to convey. It was a depiction of hers and Toklas household, referencing that world vividly in the cubist vision. If read in order 'Tender Buttons' give a very intense feeling of personal environmental settings, the house, the people living nearby and all the other dear things. She avoided noun in her poetry and wanted to create an intellectual work. Her work depicted the work of Cubist but it was in writing, she referred to the shapes in her work like "It was an extra leaker with a see spoon, it was an extra licker with a see spoon" (57). Her work had been funny as well and at times demanding more it was difficult to penetrate through and tough to understand. It has been experienced that Gertrude Stein's writings are either transparent, straight-forward or dark, private and difficult to understand which is also present in the "Tender Buttons". It has been felt that her easy work can be understood by any contrasting her tough work which can not be understood. Hence her work should be read with concentration, understanding what she exactly meant to convey. She has six styles in her writing which are also apparent in "Tender Buttons". Things which are straight and are in clear words are not transparent. She uses imaginary characters to tell the story, words and phrases are repeated. She uses poetry for people to do the guessing work and emotions are conveyed through rhythms and sounds. She believes that "Tender Buttons" is simple yet not ordinary; it is arranged yet has no resemblance and hence there is complexity involved. Though it is tough to understand her work at times but there is a strange madness and excitement in the language which is beautiful. It is a different kind of work and people get to read new and unique work which is humorous but they need to have patience to understand what is being conveyed as it is an art. [3] In "Tender Buttons" she has used things to describe life are they are in our lives which are necessary and used for survival and pleasure. She has used food to clearly show how it is important for the life to go on, it provides nourishment and keeps people living. She has described all the shapes, colors and sizes very vividly so as to convey a better picture to the readers who can understand. She has expertly handled her repetition of words and phrases through out. There is a mathematical function in her writing because she has made used of objects as in cubism and described them in such a better way that the reader can exactly view the real object. She tends to show how the objects have relation to her life and how over a period of time life changes, the circumstances change and the meaning of objects change as well. She had successfully shown how the things around us have effect on our lives and how the change it with time. Picasso, Cubism and "Tender Buttons" Picasso is an artist who has used Cubism in his work to convey message to the people through his painting. Similarly Gertrude Stein is also an artist who writes and had used Cubism in a different manner in her writing to convey the message. She was a friend of Picasso and was greatly impressed by his work. The random verbal classification has given an essence of being carefree. There have been a lot of words used which convey the meaning of hidden secret that should not be revealed. The words cluster though disorder conveys a very subtle meaning that can only be understood or predicted by few. "A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS" - It coveys that the glass is so thick and opaque, it is impossible to see through it. It is a kind of glass that is like other glass containers but is amazing to look at. It is special and not ordinary though it has resemblance with other but is unique individually. "A SUBSTANCE IN A CUSHION" - It is telling about the cushion that it is soft if taken care of or else get hard if treated harshly like people become cunning if treated in a worse way. It is made for a special place with appropriate roundness in the chair which is cut off in circle out of a fine cardboard. The delight of using the cushion is only when the person is tried and finds comfort in the softness of the round cushion. "A LONG DRESS" - It is asking how the machinery is made which makes fine clothes and appropriate waist for every individual that it satisfies the individual wearing it and brings their heart to peace and tranquility with the appropriate current producing the right length. Though the dress could be of any color even if it is dark it will not cause a dark place to develop in the person's heart because it is done to perfection with the help of the thin line that the current cause to make the dress which hides everything. "A RED HAT" - It tells about the red hat, the color red is of love and will cover the head which has monstrous thoughts and convert them to peaceful ones though it's not really necessary that red will have such an effect always. But it is better to cover a wide stretched dangerous area with thoughts and colors of peace and harmony in hope of bringing about peace. "EYE GLASSES" - It tell that the eye glasses are essential for those who can not see properly to tell the difference in color or whether it is present some substance like shaving creams or not. It is helpful in judging the placement of the location whether it is right or not; if the centre is required it will help in gauging the centre accurately. "A PETTICOAT" - It is of light white color that hides what is necessary to be hidden yet reveals a glimpse. It brings peace to a person hearts because it is known that they are well hidden. It can be a source of disgrace if wore in front of people who should not be allowed to see the glimpse while it could be a rosy charm if just worn in front of the right person. There were many verses but the above verses are chosen from the Gertrude Stein's "Tender Buttons" and they reveal a clear relation with the Cubism. There are dimensions and mathematical objects used to convey meaning so vividly that it brings about a clear understanding to the readers of what is being conveyed to them. Conclusion Art is used to convey some meaning, stimulate some desired action and it is the idea of the artist that is being conveyed to the people. He conveys his feeling and ideas and tries to inspire people with the magnificent work created. Art has been a source of earning for people but for some it is merely a form through which they can help the man kind. Picasso is an artist who has made many paintings and conveyed meaning through them. These painting have provided him a source of earning, warmth in poverty. His friend Gertrude Stein, who is also an artist, writes novels plays, stories, poems have been inspired by Picasso's development of Cubism. She adopted the style of Cubism in her writing which at times was very easy to understand and at times was tough to follow. In "Tender Buttons" she has made used of Cubism in her writing as she had in many of her writings. It was one of her initial experimental work that had brought her remarkable success. This work has helped people understand their surrounding and its relation with them and how it changes the meaning of life in various circumstances and how essential they are for the survival of a being. Work cited: 1) "Cubism" [Internet], Available at , Accessed on June 29, 2007 2) "Picasso's Party Line" [Internet], ARTnews, Available at , Accessed on June 29, 2007 3) "Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein" [Internet], Complete Review, Available at , Accessed on June 29, 2007 4) "The Young Genius" [Internet], Available at , Accessed on June 29, 2007 Read More