Cubist Artist Juan Gris
March 11, 2009
Spanish Cubist Artist Juan Gris (1887-1927) was born in Madrid, with his original name Jose Victoriano Gonzalez. Gris was one of the lead artists in the cubist movement. As a painter, Gris was part of the ‘School of Paris’ (Ecole de Paris) -movement. Gris’s subject-matter was always his immediate surroundings: he produced still lifes composed of simple, everyday objects, portraits of friends, and occasionally landscapes or cityscapes.
Biography Juan Gris
A highly intelligent man, Juan Gris initially went to study engineering in Madrid in 1902. Then in about 1904, he switched to painting. Two years later, in 1906 Juan Gris left Madrid as it was too provincial at that time, and moved to Paris. Gris adopted the pseudonym by which he is known today after moving (1906) to Paris.
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In Paris, Gris met fellow-country man Pablo Picasso, whose lead he followed. They lived in the same building and became friends. In Paris Gris also befriended Georges Braque, another cubist, as well as Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, and Amedeo Modigliani.
In the early stages of his career, Juan Gris earned his living by providing humorous drawings to L’Assiette au Beurre, Le Temoin and other illustrated papers. Gris began to paint seriously in 1910. Between 1907 and 1912 he watched closely the development of the cubist style.
Gris participated from 1912 in the Cubist movement, his work being noted for its classical purity and lucidity. Gris exhibited at the Section d’Or 1912 and was subsequently offered a contract with Kahnweiler.
In 1912 Gris exhibited his ‘Homage to Picasso’, which established his reputation as a painter of the first rank. He worked closely with Picasso and Braque until the outbreak of World War I, molding their intuitively generated innovative approach with his own, more methodical taste. Picasso, Braque and Gris formed really the three musqueteers of Cubism, with Picasso & Braque being the founders, and Gris the most gifted developer of this genre.
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Typical of his approach was his remark about Cezanne, the universally acknowledged father of Cubism:
‘Cezanne made a cylinder out of a bottle. I start from the cylinder to create a special kind of individual object. I make a bottle out of a cylinder.’
Juan Gris was an influential artist of the Section d’Or (the cubists), who also inspired other Ecole de Paris- artists such as Matisse.
Grist embraced collage as soon as Picasso & Braque had invented it, and made paper collages from 1913 to 15. Then he evolved into a more synthetic style, ‘a flat pictorial architecture’.
Gris had his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie de l’Effort Moderne, Paris, 1919. Designed sets and costumes for Les Tentations de la Bergere and other Diaghilev productions from 1921 to 1924. In the ’20s, Gris designed costumes and scenery for Serge DIAGHILEV’s Ballets Russes.
At that time, Juan Gris also completed some of the boldest and most mature statements of his cubist style, with landscape-still lifes that compress interiors and exteriors into synthetic cubist compositions and figure paintings, especially the fine series of clowns.
Settled at Boulogne-sur-Seine in 1922, but spent most winters in the South of France. First illness 1920; increasing ill-health from 1925. Died at Boulogne-sur-Seine.
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Picasso Museum Malaga
November 24, 2008
Pablo Picasso ’s art is found in museums in all countries around the Mediterranean sea, and around the world for that matter. However, it is an interesting fact that Picasso had always wished for his art to also be shown in his birthplace, Málaga, Spain.
That wish has come true, thanks to a collaboration between Picasso’s heirs and Andalucia. It is officially called the ‘Museo Picasso Málagaas’.
It is not just an ordinary museum either. It is housed in ‘Palacio de Buenavista’, a 16th century building with Andalusian architecture, located in the historic center of Malaga. It actually was opened by the king & queen of Spain. In short, a true, artistic fairytale…
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The main contributor to the museum is Christine Ruiz-Picasso, who donated 133 artworks. Her son Bernard Ruiz-Picasso added another 22. Their donations form the collection of the museum. Additional works are on loan.
The museum does host some true top works like ‘Mother and Child‘ (1921-1922), ‘Still Life with Guitar on a Circular Table’ (1922), ‘Woman with Raised Arms’ (1936), ‘Bather’ (1971) and so on.
The majority of the artworks in the collection had not been seen in public prior to the museum opening a few years back.
Examples of Picasso’s revolutionary innovations, as well as the wide range of styles, materials and techniques he used, are represented and displayed in the 12 halls of the museum. The art gallery also includes 4 other halls for temporary exhibits. Completing the museum facilities are an assembly hall, a library, an educational department and an investigation and a promotion center.
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The Latest In a Series of Picasso Museums
As mentioned earlier, there are quite a few museums in the Mediterranean region dedicated to the Picasso, including
- Museu Picasso, Barcelona;
- “>Musée National Picasso, París;
- Musée Picasso, Antibes;
- Musée national Picasso La Guerre et la Paix, Vallauris
We all know Picasso to be one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, and everyone of these Picasso museums honor him being an artist whose techniques plus styles changed the modern art.
Recent Picasso Art Exhibitions in the Picasso Museum Malaga
The museum just completed a show called ‘Picasso as seen by Otero II’. The everyday atmosphere in Picasso’s studio, with his family and friends, is one of the main themes running through this fresh selection of images by the photographer Roberto Otero which the MPM will be showing next summer. With these new photographs, the Museum, which exhibited the first selection in the summer of 2006, will reveal Picasso’s more private, personal sphere, with the aim of giving the visitor a different look at the man behind the myth.
Roberto Otero (Buenos Aires, 1931 - Palma de Mallorca, 2004) is one of the photographers who had constant access to the more private side of Pablo Picasso during the last years of his life, at the artist’s chateau in Mougins, in the south of France. Otero’s archive comprises more than 1500 images, which the MPM acquired in late 2005 and which are an exceptional testimony to Picasso’s daily life and the creative process that went into his work during the 1960s.
Other recent Picasso art exhibitions include ‘Picasso. Object and Image’ (begin ‘08), an exhibit which examined the artist’s working methods in different media and how they influenced each other, often bringing into the process the challenges of shapes and materials.
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The Museums explains the purpose of this exhibit of Picasso’s work:
“From his first Cubist work onwards, Picasso was interested in exploring the complex relationships between reality and its representation in art. This interest was expressed in the wide variety of materials and techniques that he used during the course of his career, each one with its own potential, limitations and challenges which Picasso aimed to respect but also to subject to his aesthetic requirements.
In this respect, Mourlot, the master printer who produced almost all of Picasso’s lithographs, stated: “He looked, listened and did the opposite to what he learned, and it worked”.
Picasso created art based on elements as unusual in his time as found objects, sheet metal and cast-off materials.
“I do not look, I find”, he declared. In the everyday forms of a ceramic jug, bicycle handlebars or a simple fork Picasso discovered new motifs from which to create his works. Picasso. Object and Image offered a reflection on these discoveries.
As a young man Picasso had shown an interest in ceramic but it was not until after WW II that he started to work intensely in ceramics. “
To establish interrelations between the different techniques in which the artist worked, Picasso’s ceramics were juxtaposed with works produced in other media, revealing relationships between both subject-matter and treatments. Picasso said: “People have said for centuries that a woman’s hips are shaped like a vase. This is no longer poetic; it has long since become a cliché. I take a vase and make a woman out of it. I take the old metaphor, let it work in the opposite direction, and thereby give it new life”.
What’s on Now in the Museum
Worth noting is that the Picasso Museum Malaga also shows other leading figures of the 20th century art, such as Max Ernst, on show today in ‘Beyond Paintings, featured till March 2009. Max Ernst was described by André Breton as “the most magnificently tormented mind that could possibly exist”
Ernst’s overwhelming imagination, deluded, exalted and rebellious, produced a transgressive body of work that underwent constant experimentation and which was inhabited by fantastical creatures and impossible situations.
“My wanderings, my restlessness, my impatience, my doubts, my beliefs, my hallucinations, my rages, my revolts, my refusal to submit to any discipline, even those of my own invention… none of these have succeeded in creating a climate conducive to a calm, serene body of work.” (Max Ernst about his own work in 1970.)
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Ernst lived a life of searching and constant experimentation, leading to a body of work that is one of the most significant contributions of its time to art and, in particular, to the Surrealist movement. Surrealism, like Dadaism before it, was the response of a generation of artists to Western society’s cult of rational thought which, in their opinion, had led to the horrors of the First World War.
The Surrealists believed in the importance of the unconscious, fantasy and dreams as a way to achieve a deeper level of truth. One of the foremost of these young artists was Max Ernst.
Conclusion
The Picasso Museum in worthy of visiting, year round, as visitors will be delighted by both the permanent collection, and most often, the significant exhibitions by other famous artists.
Details of the Picasso Museum
Palacio de Buenavista
Open everyday except Monday
c/ San Agustín, 8
29015 Málaga, España
www.museopicassomalaga.org
Tel: (34) 952 127600
About the Author, Artist Astrid Lee
© Author A. Lee 2008.
Also an artist who creates beautiful spiritual and symbolic art.
Further reading on this site on Picasso
Minotauromachy : Picasso’s Master print
The other museums of Paris (Picasso Museum)
The artist’s mother
Abstract Art Defined
Abstract Art Defined ii
Further reading on this site on Surrealism
Rene Magritte’s Surrealism : Meticulous, Witty IllusionsThe life of Joan Miro
Video of Joan Miro paintings/
Salvador Dali’s paintings
Salvador Dali’s art surrealism at its best and weirdest
Modern art movements
Best art museums in Europe
Shaman Artist Norval Morrisseau’s Delightful Mythical Aboriginal Art
November 13, 2008
It is not often that art gallery staff make my day, but John MacGregor Newman, Associate Director of Kinsman Robinson Galleries in Toronto, Canada, did just that two weekends ago.
He showed me a sneak peak of the current exhibition “Norval Morrisseau: A Retrospective” which is on now until 29 November. While he was doing that, his enthusiasm and extensive knowledge of the artist and his work brought out my appreciation for Norval Morrisseau’s work. In fact, it inspired me to learn more about this shaman artist’s spiritual work. As the gallery pointed out, Morrisseau’s paintings challenge viewers to look beyond themselves and their immediate surroundings into the realm of spiritual or astral worlds. And more than this.
“We Are All One in Spirit” to quote Morrisseau himself. “These paintings only remind you that you’re an Indian. Inside somewhere, we’re all Indians. So now when I befriend you, I’m trying to get the best Indian, bring out the Indianness in you to make you think everything is sacred.”
“Love for life is a gift” ~ N. M.
I have since looked at lots more of works by this First Nation artist, and have yet to see a Norval Morrisseau work that is not a celebration of sorts of that which is life. “Love for life is a gift” he once said, and it sure shows in his paintings. Actually, I believe that some of his happiest paintings are currently hanging on the wall in the gallery for public viewing. You’ll see ~ the painter’s sublimely colorful works are dazzling and kaleidoscopic, and particularly his mural sized works inspire awe.
His work may resemble childlike simplicity, but actually is very sophisticated. His colors effect us in ways that are not immediately apparent, and are of healing nature. Norval works in canvas and paper. The images are said to be lucky charms for the future and pictures of respect of the past. They have inspired three generations of First Nations artists and all this has made him an icon of Canadian art.
The Kinsman Robinson Galleries’ exhibition of Morrisseau is their first retrospective show of him in over a decade. It is timely, as it will be exactly one year ago on Dec 4 that Norval Morrisseau passed away at age 75 after having been challenged with Parkinson’s disease for quite some time.
Norval Morrisseau Biography
Morrisseau was a Canadian Native Anishnaabe (Ojibwa) painter, born on Sandy Lake Reserve in 1932. The reserve was near Lake Nipigon and near Thunderbay in Northern Ontario. He spent his youth in this remote and isolated place, where his artistic style developed without the usual influences of other artist’s imagery.
Norval Morrisseau signed his work with the powerful shamanic name ‘Copper Thunderbird’. He received this special name as a child from the tribe’s Medicine Man, when Norval was very sick and nearly died of fever. It was an unusually powerful name for a small boy and was meant to give him strength. Well, the fever disappeared, Norval survived, and the strength remained: he developed into one of the most influential Canadian artists.
Morrisseau was raised by his grandfather, who taught him shamanism and the secret oral legends of his people, the Ojibwa. He forbade Norval to paint illustrations for the stories as that would be playing with sacred imagery. As a compromise, grandpa allowed the young Norval to draw his visions on the sandy beaches of Lake Nippigon, so that they could be washed away by the tide at day’s end.
However, the images kept on coming back in his mind, and unstoppable by tribal taboo and elders’ warnings, Norval started to paint the legends using ancient forms. Fortunately, tribal attitude of Norval’s ‘misbehaving’ shifted over the years. In 1986 Morrisseau was acknowledged as Grand Shaman of the Ojibwa. In 1995, the Assembly of First Nations bestowed on him their highest honor, the presentation of an eagle feather.
Secret & Sacred Symbolism
Norval Morrisseau painted the visions that came to him in dreams and so revealed the tribe’s secret symbolism. Over the decades, Morrisseau’s works have ranged from evocations of ancient symbolic etchings on sacred birch bark scrolls and pictographic renderings of spiritual creatures, to more recent works that are more pure celebrations of color.
“I transmit astral plane harmonies through my brushes into the physical plane. These otherworld colors are reflected in the alphabet of nature, a grammar in which the symbols are plants, animals, birds, fishes, earth and sky. I am merely a channel for the spirit to utilize, and it is needed by a spirit starved society.” ~ N.M.
“Morrisseau reveals something of the soul of humanity through colour and his unique “X-ray” style of imaging: Sinewy black “spirit” lines emanate, surround, and link animal and human figures, and skeletal elements and internal organs are visible within their brightly colored segments.” - National Gallery of Canada
“My paintings are icons, that is to say, they are images which help focus on spiritual powers, generated by traditional belief and wisdom.” For example: “The fish, sacred trout, was the most respected of all fish. The trout gave the Indian life in abundance and according to Ojibwa Indian mythology it represented his soul carrier. The trout carried the Indian soul through transmigration into an other existence in the supernatural or reincarnation. All this belief worked for the betterment of the Indian food in reality - faith in the supernatural.”
“Now, when I paint a picture I just allow myself to be used. I pick up the pencil and the canvas. I allow the interaction with soul to reflect in the mind, to put down these images of people, men or women or children especially. I may draw a hundred children, but there is never the same color.” he said.
Discovery of Morrisseau, Becoming part of Canadian National Pride & Receiving International Recognition
Morrisseau was originally discovered by Toronto art gallery owner Jack Pollock. Jack gave him his first one man show in Toronto in 1962. It was a great success and sold out on the first day. Since, the artist’s principal dealer, Kinsman Robinson Galleries in Toronto, has represented Norval Morrisseau and his artwork for the last nineteen years.
Beyond Morrisseau’s initial success, there were many accolades in his artistic career. He and his friend Ray were commissioned by the Canadian government to paint the large mural for The Natives of Canada Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal. He has received an honorary degree from the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1978, he was awarded The prestigious Order Of Canada Medal by the Governor General of Canada for his contribution to Canadian Art. This is the highest civilian honor in Canada.
2006 marked the year that the National Gallery of Canada held its first major solo exhibition of a First Nations artist, and this of course was Norval Morrisseau. As part of the homage to his work, Morrisseau became one of the first artists inducted into to the prestigious Royal Society of Canada ~ a society with 1,800 distinguished Canadians selected by their peers for their outstanding contributions to the arts, natural and social sciences and the humanities. Morrisseau has had numerous solo shows across Canada and the US. Today, his work hangs in major galleries and museums around the world.
The French Love Him
In 1969, the French Press named Morrisseau the “Picasso Of The North” of Native Art, and indeed he is considered one of the most innovative artists of the Century. Both original and important artists, Picasso and Morrisseau each are creators of a completely new art movement. While Picasso invented in the midst of an influential crowd of European artists and art dealers, Norval Morrisseau developed his distinctive style of art in a remote area of Canada without such external influence or help. I guess this is also reflected in their relative levels of fame and fortune today.
In 1989, Morrisseau was the only Canadian artist invited to exhibit at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France as part of the French Revolution Bicentennial celebrations, and in the “Magicians Of The Earth” exhibition at Paris’ Museum of Modern Art. While in Europe he went to see the works of Master artists. Their work was too dark & somber to his liking and he returned to Canada to paint in even more vibrant colors and abstract shapes ~ inspired in indirect ways.
Unique Artistic Style & Genre culminates into the Woodland School of Art
Norval was the first to paint the ancient myths and legends of the eastern woodlands, and in the ’60s he became known as the soul originator of the Woodland School. The unique style of the Woodland School is now called Anishnaabe painting, a term that refers to the artist’s heritage and the archetypal status of his work.
Over time, the ‘Woodlands School of Art’ has also been called ‘Medicine Art’ as well as ‘Legend Art’. Norval Morrisseau’s art images are agents for healing or reflect many of the secret legends known only within the Ojibway and Cree Tribes. He is the most popular of Canada’s “Native Group of Seven.” Others in this group include his apprentice, friend & fellow Cree artist Carl Ray, and Morrisseau’s artist brother in law, the now late Joshim Kakegamic. Both are from the Sandy Lake Reserve. All three were pioneers of this unique, bold style of art and their influence continues to affect young native artists today.
Morrisseau Video
Morrisseau & God
“I have always been attracted to religious paintings, but only the ones that had that mystical or supernatural quality in them, especially Saint Teresa by Bernini. Just looking at Saint Teresa I get some kind of vibrations from it. I can close my eyes and feel them. That’s great art, and it brings on that tingling sexual feeling. Other saints, like Saint Sebastian, do that as well. But the Christ figure was always the one that was dominant for me. That’s why I say that Christ to me is still the greatest shaman, and that is why some religious visions are so complex, and so very hard to explain to people.” ~ N.M.
Sometimes dramatic events are required to make us see life from another point of view. Perhaps the fact that Morrisseau almost died in a hotel fire in Vancouver in 1972, helped him to make a such a shift. He fortunately recovered from the burns and healed enough to paint again. A new sense of oneness appeared, moving beyond the prior Ojibwa-Jesuit conflict within him. He adopted Christianity around that time and a number of his paintings in the ’70’s reflected this belief in the Lord as the Savior. In time the Lord and Native Shaman shared the same place and power. Morrisseau believed in astral travel and has since demonstrated a belief in Eckantar, the ancient art of soul travel with its origin in Atlantis.
By Astrid Lee, 2008
on Norval Morrisseau,
Copper Thunderbird
Note: the images of the paintings that you see here in this article do not do justice to the vibrancy of Morrisseau’s work. Some art translates well into digital imagery, however for Morrisseau’s work, a first-hand viewing is ‘a must’ to truly feel the thrill.
References
kinsmanrobinson.com
norvalmorrisseau.COM
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norval_Morrisseau
thestar.com/News/Obituary/article/282655
thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005462
kstrom.net/isk/art/morriss/art_morr.html
redkettle.com/biographies/norval-morrisseau.htm
whetung.com/morriseau.html
steffichfineart.com/paintings/norval-morrisseau/norval-morrisseau-index.htm
http://norvalmorrisseau.blogspot.com/
Minotauromachy - Picasso’s Master Print
March 1, 2008
By A. Lee
Artistic genius Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) achieved supremacy in every medium he worked in: painting, ceramics, sculptures, drawing and print making. As one of the most prolific artists at all times, he made a large volume of works in every medium.
Printmaking has been central in Picasso’s artistic life. He is one of the finest and most prolific print makers of all time. Today, I want to talk about ‘Minotauromachy’ which is often cited as the most important print of the twentieth century.
It is interesting to observe that often artists make their most astounding works at times that their personal lives are at a low. Picasso was no exception. 1935. Not quite yet divorced from his first wife Olga, and his new girl friend Marie-Therese already pregnant. It was without a doubt a difficult personal year for Picasso.
And so that year became a special artistic time for Picasso. He stopped painting early that year, and devoted himself to print making and writing poetry. It was also the year that Picasso produced what would become his most-famous print, the Minotauromachy — meaning ‘Minotaur’s battle’.
This large, intricate etching of a provocative scene is just brimming with Picasso’s personal symbolism. It is a multi-layered, universal allegory of good and evil, violence and innocence, suffering and salvation.
A multitude of actions are taking place in a small space. The artwork depicts a bull-headed Minotaur (Picasso’s alter ego throughout the ’30s). The animal is silhouetted against sea and sky. He stretches out one arm towards a young girl who stands calm in the face of his approach. She holds a lit candle in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. While the Minotaur appears threatening at first glance, he actually seems to shield himself from her candlelight.
In between them, is a terrified horse (a symbol for Marie-Thérèse) who rears on his hind legs. The horse has a gash in its belly, which seems to be caused by the Minotaur. Across the horse’s back lies an unconscious female matador. Her (pregnant?) body is half-naked and her face looks exactly like Marie-Thérèse. She holds a sword between the Minotaur and the horse. Also in the artwork is a man on a ladder against a wall, who observes the scene. His head is turned around facing out, giving him a crucified Christ-like appearance (a symbol for Picasso) Two young girls with doves (symbol of peace), looking through a window, also observe the scene.
The most important symbol is of course the minotaur itself. The minotaur stands for a oneness of man and bull. It appears increasingly in Picasso’s etchings of the 1930s. This being represents the duality in all men and in the artist himself; the opposing forces he wanted to put together as person and as artist.
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Two years later, Picasso adopts much of the print’s imagery for his world famous mural painting ‘Guernica’ - his outraged response to the Spanish civil war. The answer to ‘Why did Picasso paint Guernica?’ is kept for another article…
About Artist Astrid Lee
Astrid Lee makes spiritual art, for purposes of healing and personal growth and of course, visual contemplation! Review her work at http://www.astridlee.com. She is a frequent writer for http://www.eArtfair.com/blog , an online fine art magazine.
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