Picasso

Summary

Dominique Pagani cites Picasso mainly for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which he presents as the pivotal work of modern painting and the birth of the avant-garde. He regularly treats it as the pictorial equivalent of ruptures in music, first Petrushka1, then The Rite of Spring, to which he often returns23. He links this turning point to the influence of African sculpture and the African mask4, to the painter's Spanish origin, as one who came "from the African edge of Europe"5, and to the harsh light of the South, which sweeps away the impressionist blur6. He separates Picasso's genius from the craze for cubism, which he describes elsewhere as a neo-classicism. He also takes Picasso as an example of the modern mixing of periods. He further mentions his paintings of itinerant musicians, his drawings of the painter and his model, where the bull appears as a Minotaur the painter would have to tame7, and Guernica, which depicts the bombing of the town by the German air force.

1. 1The music of history26 Apr 2015 · 24:31
2. 2#8 Happiness and unhappiness in music11 Jan 2021 · 1:22:36
3. 3Tchaikovsky: from the steppes to the Midwest15 Jun 2022 · 11:35
4. 4Worldliness in Clouscard: desiring what? Through whom?3 Sept 2023 · 1:48:55
5. 5#4 Harnessed to confinitude11 Apr 2020 · 1:01:41
6. 6#5 Happiness versus the death drive in music11 Dec 2020 · 49:54
7. 7#7 The Greeks, myth and music17 Dec 2020 · 16:23

Summary produced automatically from 17 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.