Madness in Motion: Watch Pablo Picasso create ‘Visage: Head of a Faun’
No other artist single-handedly defines the Cubist art movement like Pablo Picasso. An early 20th-century wave of avant-garde, where Cubist artists would eschew their subjects’ conventional form and aesthetic in favour of multi-angled geometric abstractions and angular surreality, resulting in a fusion of varying perspectives crushed into one, striking whole.
A key chapter in modern art’s challenge of the old creative orthodoxies and former gatekeepers of artistic merit, Cubism’s busy reassemblage would pave the way for the likes of Soviet Constructivism, Italian Futurism, and the international Dada cohort which still trigger the ire of contemporary conservatism courting paranoia about modern art’s subversive influence over 100 years later.
Picasso’s artistic near-80-year journey was forged in Realism. Born in Málaga, Spain, in 1881, his father, José Ruiz y Blasco, formally taught the young Picasso the creative basics, becoming highly skilled in oil paintings at the tender age of eight. Tradition served as a potent guide to his work across his teens, with early pieces such as The Altarboy and Portrait of the Artist’s Mother informed by his then Catholic faith, and the academic discipline under his family’s tutelage and the training at Barcelona’s School of Fine Arts.
By 16, Picasso was already a restless maverick; admitted to the country’s prestigious Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, but ignoring classes in favour of immersing himself in the expressionist developments pioneered by art’s fringes.
“The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?” Picasso reportedly stated in his French studio in Vallauris, years later. Picasso evolved through fixations on blue then red hues and colour experiments before immersing himself in the Indigenous art of Aboriginal and African culture, all fuelling Cubism’s confluence by the end of the 1900s. His work would become ever more abstract as the decades rolled by, the classic impression of his style coloured by twisted bodies and bold colour patterns remaining a foundational motif till one of his last pieces, 1972’s Self-Portrait Facing Death, completed before his death the following year.
One of the most candidly revealing insights into Picasso’s artistic practice was his feature in 1956’s Le mystère Picasso, or The Mystery of Picasso. Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, the documentary observes the creative process in real time by shooting behind the canvas as the ink used bleeds through the other side. What begin as simple drawings evolve into oil-based collages that perennially shift in form, Picasso hinting at the subject, such as a rooster, then swerving into a fish before settling on his final Visage: Head of a Faun.
Apparently, the pieces Picasso created were destroyed, but reports of surviving pictures persist among his fans. Should they ever resurface, the slapdash paintings could stand as some of the most prized pieces in his storied legacy.
Far from a dry study of his methodology, Le mystère Picasso is charged with a light-hearted and joyous observation of unfolding art, Clouzot interjecting halfway through to discuss the incidental practicalities of filmmaking, and even ‘directs’ Picasso, urging him to arrive at his conclusion swiftly before the film reel reaches its end. Picasso responds with coy aplomb, masterfully toying with Clouzot and the audience with his finishing touches, plashed seconds before the camera’s canister empties.
Winning the Special Jury Prize at that year’s Cannes Film Festival, Le mystère Picasso captures not just an artistic titan in his element, but is a fascinating glimpse into the man and character behind the oeuvre of pioneering abstraction with a disregard for tradition.
