Picasso's Works at Metropolitan Museum of Art - Essay Example

Picasso at the Met Approaching the colossal Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue, with its intimidating Indiana limestone faade of niches, columns and carved architectural details and the accompanying mass of people swarming around the jetting rectangular fountains, is always an awe-inspiring experience. Each time I find myself in the extraordinary entrance plaza with its encroaching staircases I am excessively aware that I am standing within the perimeter of one of the most impressive cultural institutions in the world and have access to its exceptional range of collections. Meandering on my path to the goal of this particular trip, I moved through the chiseled arches, distinct vaults and accented doorways surrounding the spectacular displayed items within Medieval Art, and then move into European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. I can't resist a quick glance at the magnificent masks and gorgeous wood carvings so aesthetically arranged in the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. A single day would not be enough to truly appreciate all the exhibitions on display on the first floor alone. But I came for a purpose, and continued my journey. Modern Art is arranged in 11,000 square feet arranged over three levels in the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, opened in 1987.1 I love moving around the contemporary white walls, so different from the other departments I visited. This is a gift to experience, as there is so much to discover. Here I could walk through the art schools and movements espoused in books, and understand the facts I have read about in a brilliantly new way. One of the undisputed masters of modern art is the Spanish-born artist Pablo Picasso. His initial Blue Period of 1901-04 is marked by the monochromatic focus on that particular color and subject-matters defined by 'a particular cast of characters: lonely, suffering, poverty-stricken outcasts from society'.2 This morphed into the brightened tones of the Rose Period lasting two years, which featured the first appearance of circus performers in his paintings.3 Yet a transitory revolution was on its way, sparked by his association with Braque, whom he met upon moving to Paris. By 1910, Analytical Cubism was erupting, defined by the pictorial deconstruction of an object to produce a conceptual (as oppose to perceptual) image of an object.4 After two more years came Synthetic Cubism, with its revolutionary collages.5 After World War I Picasso broke with Braque and began moving towards Surrealism.6 The significance of this cannot be underestimated, as 'the Surrealist movement moved Picasso in a direction including new imagery and vocabulary for emotional expression, and he incorporate violence, psychic fears, and eroticism in his works'.7 This is the period of the painting hung before me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1934's Girl Reading at a Table. Color is my first impression-the warmth of the red, orange and yellow against a black background with hints of blue and green. A woman with white skin and hair and an elaborate green garland around her head is reading at a tall and simple table. One feather-esque hand touches her face while the other secures the book that so thoroughly captures her attention. Her fair skin features slight echoes of pink on her cheeks and neck, and her head is at such an angle that her pale hair falls before her eyes. Also on the desk is an amorphic yellow lamp and a tall and curving potted plant in a brown container rises from the ground. This still thriving plant and the wreath adorning her hair bring a form of nature inside this space. Although the contents of the room are compressed within the frame of the painting, there is no awkwardness in the composition. The straight table legs are wonderfully offset by the gorgeously flowing lines of the red and orange dress as well as the plant and the yellow light flowing from the small lamp that brightens the dark night scene. Yet there is something young about this woman at the oversized reading table, and that is because the model is Marie-Therese Walter, a French girl who became Picasso's lover in 1927 at the age of seventeen.8 Their affair escaped much public note and she eventually had a daughter with him.9 The quiet and nearly clandestine nature of their relationship is felt in this painting-I can sense the intimacy between the artist and his model. Although the lines and forms are sensuous, this is not a sexy or exploitive image. I see a reflective, intelligent young woman, fully dressed and lost in her book. It captures the essence of a person and a romance in a manner that only becomes more interesting the more I study it. There is a story here, despite the lack of photographic precision and detailed academic style portraiture. This lush melding of Cubist sensibility and Surrealist sensuality is palpably executed and undoubtedly effective. I see this woman in the midst of an everyday act, and although I would never be able to identify her in a picture I believe I have an even more important indicator of her actual character. I would want to be seen like that, or be able to see another human being so uniquely and express my vision in such a powerful and holistic way. Being able to see such a fantastic painting as Picasso's Girl Reading at a Table in person at such an iconic cultural institution is truly a privilege, as is being able to communicate my experience of both in this paper. I feel as though I have managed to glimpse something long extinguished, and better understand the potential power of a painting to convey a single moment of a fleeting relationship to a stranger like me from another time and continent. Read More