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1、Unit 4 Text C Pablo Picasso: from a Child Prodigy to an Utter Genius,1 Pablo Picasso, born in Spain, was a child prodigy who was recognized as such by his art-teacher father, who ably led him along. 2 He was a rebel from the start and, as a teenager, began to frequent the Barcelona cafes where intel
2、lectuals gathered. He soon went to Paris, the capital of art, and soaked up the works of Manet, Gustave Courbet, and Toulouse-Lautrec, whose sketchy style impressed him greatly. 3 Before he struck upon Cubism, Picasso went through a prodigious number of stylesrealism, caricature. The Blue Period dat
3、es from 1901 to 1904 and is characterized by a predominantly blue palette and subjects focusing on outcasts, beggars, and prostitutes. This was when he also produced his first created painting in memory of a great childhood friend, the Spanish poet Casagemas, who had committed suicide. The painting
4、started as a self-portrait, but Picassos features became those of his lost friend. The composition is stilted, the space compressed, the gestures stiff, and the tones predominantly blue. Yet another example, perhaps the most lyrical and mysterious ever, is the haunting Woman with a Crow (1903).,4 Th
5、e Rose Period began around 1904 when Picassos palette brightened, the paintings dominated by pinks and beiges, light blues, and roses. His subjects are circus people, harlequins, and clowns, all of whom seem to be mute and strangely inactive. One of the premier works of this period is extremely beau
6、tiful Family of Saltimbanques dating to 1905, which portrays a group of circus workers who appear alienated and incapable of communicating with each other, set in a one-dimensional space. 5 In 1905, Picasso went briefly to Holland, and on his return to Paris, his works took on a classical aura with
7、large make and female figures seen frontally or in distinct profile, almost like early.,6 Picasso discovered ancient Iberian sculpture from Spain, African art, and sculptures. Slowly, he included the simplified forms he found in these sources into a striking portrait of Gertrude Stein, finished in 1
8、906. She has a severe masklike face made up of emphatically clear-cut forms compressed inside a restricted space. This unique portrait comes as a crucial shift from what Picasso saw to what he was thinking and paves the way to cubism. 7 Then came the awesome Les Demoiselles dAvignon of 1907, the sha
9、ker of the art world. Picasso was a little afraid of the painting and didnt show it except to a small circle of friends until 1916, long after he had completed his early Cubist pictures. Cubism is essentially the fragmenting of three-dimensional forms into flat areas of pattern and color, overlappin
10、g and intertwining so that shapes and parts of the human anatomy are seen from the front and back at the same time. The style was created by Picasso in tandem with his great friend Georges Braque, and at times, the works were so alike it was hard for each artist quickly to identify their own.,8 Ever
11、y progressive painter, whether French, German, Belgian, or American, soon took up Cubism, and the style became the dominant one of at least the first half of the 20th century. Picasso would create a host of Cubist styles throughout his long career. In 1912 Picasso produced Still-Life with Chair-Cani
12、ng, in the Picasso Museum in Paris, which is an oval picture that is, in effect, a cafe table in perspective surrounded by a rope frame - the first collage, or a work of art that incorporates preexisting materials or objects as part of the whole. Elements glued to the surface contrasting with painte
13、d versions of the same material provided a sort of sophisticated double take on the part of the observer. A good example of this, dubbed, The Guitar (1913). The most accomplished pictures of the fully developed Synthetic Cubist style are two complex and highly colorful works representing musicians.
14、He produced fascinating theatrical sets and costumes for the Ballet Russe from 1914 on, turned, in the 1920s, to a rich classical style, creating some breathtaking line drawings, dabbled with Surrealism between 1925 and 1935, and returned to Classicism.,9 Picasso lived in Paris through the World War
15、, producing gloomy paintings in semi-abstract styles, many depicting skulls or flayed animals or a horrifying charnel house. He turned enthusiastically to sculpture, pottery, and print-making. Whatever Picasso had a hand in turned out to have an unquenchable spark of utter genius.,Exercises of Text
16、C Part One Choose the best answer to each question.,1. From the first two paragraphs we can infer _. A. Pablo Picassos family background is helpful for him to grow into a painter B. when he was young, Picasso always behaved as he was asked to C. at first, Picasso followed the styles of the other artists closely D. Picasso has been greatly influenced by artists in Paris instead of his father 2. The phrase “struck upon” in the third passage means _. A. “was subjected to a
