{"id":10720,"date":"2017-03-30T20:57:53","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T20:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/?p=10720"},"modified":"2017-03-30T21:13:34","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T21:13:34","slug":"picasso-and-rivera-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/picasso-and-rivera-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Picasso and Rivera Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Really, this is quite unusual, self-portraits talking to each other from a wall on either side of a gallery door. The man on the left, a short muscular brute standing bare-chested, says, \u201cGet out of that frame.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cOkay, as long as you do, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tPablo Picasso, cocky at age twenty-five in 1906, steps naked, it turns out, onto the gallery floor. Five years younger and looking quite fresh, Diego Rivera, clad warm in a coat, emerges and says, \u201cI restrain myself when I say I admire your work very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cLike so many others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cMay I ask why you\u2019re not wearing clothes this day?\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\u201cI just abandoned the bed of a beautiful woman and need no garments before conquering new subjects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cSince coming to Europe from Mexico two years ago, I\u2019ve already learned much about painting, as well as women, and hope someday to rival you on canvas as well as in the boudoir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tPicasso smirks and says, \u201cOver here, this one, Portrait of Sebastian Ju\u00f1er Vidal \u2013 I painted my friend blue in a bar two years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHe\u2019s handsome and distinguished but what\u2019s he doing with such a worn and disreputable woman?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cA chubby fellow like you may find out when he gets older.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cOn occasion, perhaps, but most of mine will be delights. I ask you to join me over there in front of Bather in Tehuantepec. Let\u2019s see, I\u2019ll paint this mysterious and sensual native lady in 1923, and I can see what happens. I\u2019ll later finish the painting in my studio, and here this day drop my pencil and pad and, as she\u2019s bent over, I\u2019ll kneel to suckle her big young brown breasts and smother her lips and lay her on sacred ground surrounded by the lush green foliage of Tehuantepec.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cSe\u00f1orita,\u201d says Picasso. <\/p>\n

\t\u201cThis way, Se\u00f1or,\u201d Rivera says, \u201cI see your Three Young Women at the Spring from 1921.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThese hefty peasants huddle near the shores of the Mediterranean, baring huge hands, arms, and legs that remind me of yours, but they redeem themselves by wearing low-cut gowns that suggest sensual breasts worthy of embrace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHere, In Flower Day,\u201d says Rivera, \u201cI\u2019ll in 1925 paint one of their stocky North American counterparts, a humble indigenous women bearing huge flowers, yellow phalluses erect amid virginal white, on her sturdy back as she bows to two ladies, one carrying a baby on her back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI seem to have influenced you a great deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThat\u2019s true, but I must still learn to steal so skillfully as you, my dear Pablo. Here in The Source of 1921 you appear to have robbed yourself. We have another large but sexy woman and an unambiguously revealed left breast. I like the massive urn in her lap, ejaculating on the ground, but it\u2019s unfortunate you\u2019ll merely draw her in black crayon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI wager this one\u2019s but a study for the oil and flesh to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cAnd here, look what I\u2019ll do in 1931 \u2013 Flowered Canoe. The indigenous young boatman, solemn about his past and future, poles the water as he serves a load of passengers, native and stern, who mourn history and dread the horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cOver there,\u201d says Picasso, \u201cplease study The Pipes of Pan and the morose purple sea making joyless my two young men clad only in loincloths. One plays the pipes while the other half listens. They\u2019re drifting in 1923.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThey\u2019re a sad pair but perhaps not so bleak as Mandrake and the maniacally happy young bride covered in white lace enlivened by sharp red fingernails she\u2019ll soon for the first time dig into the flesh of her unseen groom who doubtless wonders, \u2018Dearest, why are you holding that skull in your lap?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThat painting\u2019s from 1939 when you\u2019ll be fifty-three. I see a darkening in your work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cYours likewise is bringing us less joy,\u201d says Rivera.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cDark emotions heighten aesthetic joy, my corpulent young friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cBegging the pardon of your short little ass, I\u2019ll rephrase my assessment. We\u2019re going to see much sickness and war and our work will reflect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cAnd many difficult women, no doubt,\u201d says Picasso.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThey\u2019ll trouble us less than the apocalypse.<\/p>\n

\tNotes: I overheard this exchange while visiting Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time, an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. <\/p>\n

Diego Rivera<\/p>\n

Self-Portrait, 1906<\/a><\/p>\n

Bathers in Tehuantepec, 1923<\/a><\/p>\n

Flowered Canoe, 1931<\/a><\/p>\n

Pablo Picasso<\/p>\n

Self-Portrait, 1906<\/a><\/p>\n

Three Women at the Spring, 1921 <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Really, this is quite unusual, self-portraits talking to each other from a wall on either side of a gallery door. The man on the left, a short muscular brute standing bare-chested, says, \u201cGet out of that frame.\u201d \u201cOkay, as long as you do, too.\u201d Pablo Picasso, cocky at age twenty-five in 1906, steps naked, it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,329,503,119],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nPicasso and Rivera Talk - George Thomas Clark<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/picasso-and-rivera-talk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Picasso and Rivera Talk - George Thomas Clark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Really, this is quite unusual, self-portraits talking to each other from a wall on either side of a gallery door. 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