Summary One Day Axel Walked Into Intro to the Art of War Looking Like a Picasso Painting

I've known for some fourth dimension that Picasso was a self-aggrandizing asshole of trivial talent (capable of massive production, but non hard to exercise with no quality standards).

From non-art affectionados Picasso's cubist paintings or simple line sketches may arm-twist comments such as "whatever kid could accept drawn that."

A superficial introduction to art history will often focus on a handful of "daring and artistic" artists who pushed the envelope and started a movement, as if they were courageous outliers or misfits who refused to cave into societal expectation or fads or styles and but did their own affair.

In fact "Art for Fine art's sake" is a mantra we've inherited fromFin de siècle (1890~1900) modernists, which has never quite been true.

Cursory History Lesson: Since the first of civilisation, artists made things of beauty that people appreciated. For thousands of years, skill, method and talent was rigorously improved. It got to the indicate that unless you were incredibly gifted, yous couldn't get into the all-time fine art schools for more than training, which meant yous had zero chance of becoming a career artist.

Which led to a whole bunch of really frustrated creative people, who began to rebel against the classically organized fine art academies. In 1887 Gustav Klimt was co-founder of the Secession Movement in Vienna, which was part of a general movement abroad from 'classical' art. Art no longer had to be "functional" (ie, pleasant to look at). It didn't thing if anybody liked it. Information technology just had to be NEW.

Then a whole bunch of people with marginal preparation or talent (the ability to paint representationally, using perspective, proper dimensions and proportion) started making a whole agglomeration of stuff. Not incidentally, the 1890's were also rife with new, exciting substances and scientific discoveries, like heroin and cocaine, which led to rampant experimentation in novel moods and sensations. (Freud wrote most the benefits of cocaine in 1884, and "Coca-Cola" was introduced in 1886. Heroin was adult as a 'not-addictive' cure for morphine dependency.)

But this calendar week I read the particularly entertaining Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History, which introduced me to unsavory, notwithstanding riotous, facts of Picasso's apprehensive ancestry. In short, he was a brash immature punk blatantly copying ameliorate artists, with no creative thought in his head, repetitively trying to cash in on the ruling trends and fads – mostly, absinthe – which is directly responsible for all of Picasso's all-time work, including the "blue period" and the invention of cubism.

A little groundwork on Absinthe

During the French colonial wars from 1830-1847, absinthe rations were given to protect from malaria and kill bacteria in drinking h2o. The active chemical in Wormwood, the main ingredient in Absinthe, is thujone – which has a chemic similarity to DEET (used in almost mosquito repellants). Although it caused a few cases of delusional insanity, the soldiers brought the custom home with them.

In the late 19th century, a rising centre class sought to emulate a leisurely lifestyle that had previously just been possible for aristocrats. Absinthe drinking became dignified and glamorous; it was associated with the opera, high form, and conspicuous consumption. It was a respectable bourgeois custom earlier dinner.

This was the era of fancy dinner parties and wit – merely also of scandal and sexual innappropriacy; it was the era of Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire, and the creation of art meant to shock and startle.

Absinth was a smart, fun, artsy drink of young men of fashion (a "dandy"). And its sensory-enhancing novelty was appreciated artistic thinkers trying to find a new style. The main problem was that, since skill and talent didn't matter anymore, it was really hard for anybody to know what was valuable. So the majority of these young artists couldn't make any money (and worse, were often ridiculed in the printing.)

But it made them all sickly and hopelessly fond alcoholics… life in the city became jaded, frustrating, depressing, disgusting, unbearable. Poor, starving artists who spent all their money on absinthe became a cultural cliche; fifty-fifty (or peculiarly) the more successful ones died literally penniless on the street with their face in the gutter.

Bohemia was "the stage of the less well known or struggling writers and artists who might one day end up in the Academie Francaise, simply might as cease up in the aviary, the charity ward, or the morgue."

Absinthe, also called "madness in a bottle" was a fundamental characteristic of this period.

in 1874, 700,000 litres a yr were produced; by 1910 it had increased to thirty-vi million.

Beyond mere alcoholism, long term absinthe use led to psychosis and farthermost paranoia.

Vehement love affairs with stab wounds and pistols fired were commonplace.

Absinthe was the cultural symbol of everything that was going on: the murkiness and moral confusion after the dissolution of grand religious narratives; the crowding of the cities and unstable chore market; uncertainty and pointlessness of life…

The kickoff painting of absinthe was by Manet in 1859.

Nearly the completion of the painting, Manet showed the work to his former master, who retorted: "An absinthe drinker! And they paint abominations like that! My poor friend, you are the absinthe drinker. It is you who have lost your moral sense."

It'due south worth noticing nonetheless, that Manet was already painting basically the same affair; lots of poor, disheveled bums.

Here is "The Philosopher" painted in 1867.

In fact the drinking glass of absinthe in the absinthe drinker was a later addition to the painting. Rather than 'property out' and 'non being swayed by fads' … artists of the time (like all artists really should) added elements that were trending, that would connect with people, that would be contemporary and relevant.

Still, The Absinthe Drinker was submitted to and rejected by the Paris Salon in 1859; mostly because it was so unpolished – you could even meet the brushstrokes, oh my! And so many paintings were rejected past hopeful young artists that they got together and created the Salon des Refusés in 1863.

Edgar Degas painted L'Absinthe in 1876. A Gazette critic called it

The perfection of ugliness… The color is as repulsive every bit the figures; a brutal, sensual-looking french workman and a sickly looking grisette; a most unlovely couple."

But times were changing… someone actually bought information technology, and information technology was sold at Christies in 1892 (although the public hissed at it).

Another critic in Westminster Gazette:

Any 1 who valued nobility and beauty would never be induced to consider L'Abinsthe a work of art.

Even if not the obvious subject area, the emerging styles of the day were influenced by the heavy drinking and visionary distortions it acquired.

The offset stage is like ordinary drinking, the 2d when you lot begin to come across cruel and monstrous things…But if y'all can persevere you will enter in upon the third stage where your see things that yous want to run across." -Oscar Wilde

A commenter on Lautrec's paintings (like this ane) said they were "entirely painted by absinthe."

I besides like this ane by Axel Törneman in 1902:

Absinthe was a staple in literature as well – not simply poetic ballads to its pleasures, but besides equally a social destabilizer.

In Zola'south 1880 novel Nana, a sexy lesbian couple stays in with a canteen instead of going down and drinking beer with the men.

Working women were less inclined to grab a man to support them, then for single immature men who hadn't the coin or confidence to flirt, absinthe became a constant companion.

Albert Maignan painted the "Green Muse" in 1895.

Czech painter Viktor Oliva did something similar in 1901.

But when Absinthe became cheaper than beer; it was more and more than associated with the working classes, which was bad for production.

The early heroes of inventiveness and aesthetics and "Art for Fine art's Sake!" were growing upwardly, getting quondam, constantly drunkard, chronically sick and impoverished, and dying early.

The whole temper was portrayed in Oscar Wilde'southward Picture of Dorian Grayness (1890)… beautiful young men becoming horrid, wretched, impoverished, crazy.

Fifty-fifty worse, a break down in the form boundaries led to opulent places similar the Cafe Regal, who sold absinthe cheap and let the working classes enjoy a gustation of luxury (usually on Sundays, which made Monday an unofficial holiday since nobody could get any work washed).

Orphen, 1912 Buffet Royale

Enter Picasso, Stage Right

Just after this whole devolution of art and absinthe, when legendary poets had suffered through a decade of addiction, gone poor and crazy and/or died, Picasso arrived 1900 with his friend Carlos Casagemas.

What did the young Picasso decide to paint? Absinthe, of course.

In 1901 he painted the cleverly titled The Adult female Drinking Absinthe and Absinthe Drinker.

With no style of his ain, he experimented with other people's styles.

Picasso associated Absinthe with Baudelairean tradition of low-life urban and cafe subjects, and particularly with Alfred Jarry (an eccentric friend of Oscar Wilde'south), who fascinated him then much he emulated him by drinking absinthe and carrying a revolver.

Not content to copy, Picasso was jealous and prone to competition.

He hated Matisse and had his friends write graffiti all over the walls; "Matisse'south paintings volition drive you mad"

A year after they'd arrived in Paris, Carlos started seeing the married woman of Ramon Pichot (another friend of Picasso's) but then tried to shoot her (in a jealousy and absinthe fueled binge, perhaps?) but he failed, so then shot himself (maybe worried that Pichot would hunt him downward out of accolade).

Given people liked to carry pistols around, and that everybody was getting smashed on Absinthe which caused extreme paranoia and other negative emotions, there were lots of suicides during this period.

At any rate, this (it is claimed) is why Picasso started painting things in blueish. The subject however, didn't modify much. Phil Baker comments:

Picasso's early work were studies of poverty and depression-ridden subjects, painted in tones of blue and greenish. Absinthe-drinking seems to figure in these pictures equally an instance of addiction, angst and psychic extremity."

Was Picasso clinically depressed afterward losing his friend? I don't recollect then.

He was just painting subjects that were already popular – poverty, cafe shops, solitary figures and absinthe.

He even painted some clowns, because Lautrec and other artists had been doing it to some success.

The blue coloration is new… but in 1903 Picasso switched to a brusque-lived "Rose Period" instead.

He was probably using blue or rose colored glass and just experimenting with stuff. Only pink didn't go over too, since depression was more suited to the pulse of the times.

Was he inspired by divine genius, listening to inspiration, and doing what he was really passionate about?

No. Expect, more clowns and poor people and isolated, emotionless figures.

I'm not proverb these aren't awesome, and Picasso seems to be developing a style… simply really, he'south copying other people'due south styles. Picasso was then well known for thieving ideas, other artists started to hide their work when he dropped past.

In a swell article called The Picasso Problem the author reflects on an exhibition comparing Degas' influence on Picasso and writes:

Non for nothing did he quip, "Proficient artists borrow, great artists steal." (And needless to say, Picasso considered himself a very great artist.) Over and again, in "Picasso Looks at Degas," the Spaniard seems crude and groping, and the Frenchman poised and refined.

In 1912 he started doing what came to known as Cubism. Actually, he was but using absinthe bottles and glasses to fragment the scene. Hither'due south A Bottle of Pernod (absinthe) and Glass.

Picasso besides published some pictures of a statistically deconstructed guitar and violin in a little magazine, with only 14 subscribers. After Picasso's instruments appeared, thirteen of them wrote in and cancelled their subscription.

In 1914, he tried his hand at sculpture. What did he make?

A series of six foreign Absinthe Glasses. Hither's one (can you meet the spoon and sugar cube on summit?)

Personally, I think information technology's crap, but I like my art to have at least some skill or quality, accept some time to produce, and exist emotionally moving.

Only mod critics take called information technology "A defiant celebration of the now clearly endangered drink."

Due to the destructive influences of Absinthe, the prohibition movement had been gaining speed.

Germany declared war on 13th Baronial, 1914 – on the 16th, absinthe was prohibited.

Conclusions

"Follow your passion" and "Fine art for Art's Sake" (art is 100% non-functional) led to a generation of highly artistic immature men who became drunks and died horribly. A few produced some quality material – just fifty-fifty those who became famous did so equally by virtue of their bizarre, dangerous and fierce lifestyles of excess, self-devastation, cocky-pity, remorse and introspection, and an increasing sense of meaninglessness.

Picasso escaped all of this by beingness a latecomer, when absinthe was on its way out simply he took advantage of it past continuing to focus on the most prevalent and common artistic theme of the past 20 years.

He didn't ask himself, "What am I passionate well-nigh? What do I like to draw? What practise I desire to do?"

He looked around and said, "What's everybody else doing? What's a hot social event of controversy, with powerful emotional influences?"

Paintings of pitiful people drinking absinthe alone were already common. Paintings distorted or blurred or "green" referencing the inebriated country of absintheurs were already mutual. But Picasso nonetheless spent 14 years painting them anyway.

Sure, Cubism was an intellectual leap – he invented something new – just information technology was still very much tied to contemporary movements and the objects and theme of absinthe. And he simply accidentally became famous because weirdos like the symbolists and dadaists were looking for bizarre, ugly, provocative, "anti-art".

And although he tried a few other things, mostly he painted absinthe, over and over again.

Lessons Learned

1. The reigning ideology of creative production (at least for most writers and artists) is the aforementioned i that leads to failure and ruin. "Art" is non a viewer-less, cocky-contained phenomenon of divine inspiration. "Art" is not doing any you feel like doing. It does not have inherent value regardless of its caste of quality, skill or potential interest to other people.

two. The greatest, about successful, big proper name artists in history always got right in the middle of pop fine art movements, noticed what was trendy or popular, saw the things that everybody was talking near or reacting to, borrowed heavily from all other artists they could notice, put it all together in a perfect blend of awesomeness (hard-core consumer sell-outism) and and so marketed the Hell out of information technology.

There are a few notable exceptions, like Van Gogh, but even the tragic life he lived so exactly matched the current classic of the failed genius that it helped his afterwards claim to fame; also, his paintings were definitely close to the art movements and styles of his time – brilliant colors, bold strokes, condone for perspective, etc).

When Van Gogh couldn't afforded absinthe, he started drinking pigment thinner and eating his lead-containing oil paints. (Oil painting is toxic, even the fumes can make you dizzy. The relationship betwixt mental instability and fine art isn't a sign of the "crazy madness of inspiration" – it'due south a issue of drinking besides much and painting all the time.

Van Gogh wasn't content to but paint, he desperately wanted to exist a successful, recognized, gallery artists and was trying. If he'd waited ten years instead of shooting himself in 1890, he probably would have been. (By the way – some evidence suggests he was shot accidentally by a malfunctioning gun.)

Too, here's a Van Gogh of workers drinking absinthe.

3. You've got to believe information technology, and you lot've got to sell information technology. You lot are what you say you are. Yous are a part of the story. Get do crawly things. Discover a war to join or a movement to champion. Choice a fight and go to jail. Notice a mode to stand out and be extraordinary. Write your ain legend. And PRODUCE a shit load of content. When you find something people seem to similar and respond to, keep doing information technology.

Last Notes

It's easier to see what Picasso was doing by pairing paintings (I'k not sure if I've got these right). But basically Picasso looked at someone else's painting so fucked it up.