Picasso's Advice

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael,but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

This quote from Pablo Picasso has always fascinated me. Why would a master, an artist and the consumate craftsperson want to unlearn complex techniques that had taken him years of work to perfect? The need for this perception shift came as a revelation to Picasso in the fall of 1906 (some say 1907) when fellow artist, Henri Matisse, showed him an African mask one evening at the salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Matisse had recently received acclaim for his painting, Le bonheur de vivre. It was a representation of his artistic vision using distorted shapes and vivid colors that were not shaded or refined so they appeared flat. Also influenced by his exposure to African Art.

The legend is that Picasso was so overwhelmed by seeing the mask that he would not be parted with it for the entire evening - not even during dinner. When he returned to his studio at Le Bateau Lavoir, he painted furiously all night to capture the primal images that the mask had caused to bubble up to the surface of his consciousness. In the morning, he was found asleep, surrounded by pictures of a "one-eyed, four-eared, square-mouthed" images.

If I apply his line of thought to my own writing and image making, I begin to understand the process and the necessity of following Picasso’s lead. To find an authentic, genuine avenue to get what I perceive on the inside to the outside media, without the influences I've unconsciously (or consciously) absorbed from other people’s expressions, I have to find a way to bypass those filters I've set into place over the course of many years.

 And, as Picasso implies about his own work - I have to constantly work on freeing the channel that has been blocked by the many detour signs I've placed in my path because I happen to appreciate another person’s individual artistic expression.

 I find it takes something akin to discipline to force myself to see and experience my world in a child-like way. I have to constantly remind myself that it is I who have made an image because I am looking at something. It is I who am whispering in my own ear what I see through an image I made. That's the purpose of my cameras, my computers, my paints, my pens and my pencils. I am my own audience. And if someone else finds meaning there - that's fine.

   

When I edit, crop, enhance or just stare at an image I've taken, it because I want to know what it means to me. That idea becomes clearer to me when I spend time with children. It's easy to let them to re-teach me to unlearn what I’ve come to regard as “the right way” to photograph or write.

 Children too can't escape their fate. They're constantly absorbing what they watch parents and older siblings doing. Yet they just can’t stop from reflecting the way they experience pieces of their world as themselves. They spontaneously revel in it.

 

How do we go back? Thankfully, there are some other things we can do to connect ourselves with the essence of what we see.

We can make the time to spend some time around elements that can be read as simple basics. Like...

Light.

Wood.

Water.

Muddy earth.

 Here's the first piece Picasso created after he was mesmerized by the African mask.

Here's a portrait of me taken by a 3 year old who I thought was just playing with my phone.

I couldn't help but see something familiar!

Comments

[Nickiwooguru]

Once again, brilliant Mate. Brilliant.

There is another artist Cy Twombly, who said

“My line is childlike but not childish. It is very difficult to fake…to get that quality you need to project yourself into the child’s line. It has to be felt.”

When I read that I thought, 'AH HAH', that's it. Sometimes (more often than I like to admit) when I write I become scared, or nervious, because what I write is so raw (to me). When I read it over, naturally I relate because I wrote it, but it seems so juvenile. And I wonder if people would really want to read it. So primal, crude thoughts, feelings, unfiltered, and really QUITE SILLY. Thoughts and emotions that I had as a child, and expressed. Now too often, I supress those urges to share MY TRUE EXPERIENCE with others, except in my writing.

But like Picasso, when I feel it, I have to write, or paint as it were. These crazy thoughts fill my mind, and I must get them out or else, I just can't think straight. I hope that I get to the point where I can enjoy what I write more, be less filtered, and truly channel my own experiences. It seems so simple, but gosh, it's hard work.

Thanks for making me think. I don't think I've told you lately. . .but I love your blog :)