You prefer cubist portraits. In other words, a rara avis who is not repelled by Picasso’s women:) Well, you obviously can tell a cubist portrait from a portrait in other styles, like realism or romanticism, yet the questions that pop up when looking at these paintings still need to be answered.
Among them are “What’s that supposed to mean?”, “Is it art anyway?”, “Can they hold a brush at all?” Distortion and deformation are fundamental to the style and follow the profoundly developed aesthetics and philosophy of cubism. In their search to rationalize the world around, to find the logics in the chaos of military and post-war time and to grasp the true essence of being (or a person in case of a portrait) cubist artists analyzed the object, broke it down into attributes, singled out those that are stable regardless of external factors, including the space orientation. If you picture a person focusing on resemblance, the realistic portrayal, you will receive a portrait of this specific person at a specific age and of a specific profession, at a certain time of the day etc. However, if you think about it, are you as a person really just a total of these skin-deep characteristics? Your essence, the core of your personality cannot be reduced to the effects of lighting and clothing, and cannot depend on the mood you are in at a certain time.
Therefore cubists studied their model, broke him or her into elements, got rid of those that did not matter due to their instability and conveyed only those stable attributes that make up a person. Each of these attributes or elements was placed at a different angle. The point is that we do not paint a profile or a face – we portray a person, the essential being that does not depend on space or time characteristics. Despite the deformation that resulted from analysis and reorganization of the external attributes of a person, the cubist portraits breathe of harmony and aesthetics, they follow rigid artistic laws and can be intuitively grasped. At the times of discord and during the tragic periods of his life Picasso painted monstrous women in sharp abrupt lines and screaming colours, and the aggressive forms made them totally different from the mysterious and enigmatic female images of other periods, despite the fact that each and any one of them was subjected to ruthless mutilation.
We do remember that distortion has a deep background in this style, and you should not even try interpreting and analyzing cubist paintings from the perspective of realistic representation. Their beauty is like that of a mathematical problem – the pleasure is purely intellectual: you need to analyze, understand and enjoy the fact that you can appreciate it.
Points to consider when looking at a cubist portrait: First study the person conveyed, follow the artist’s thoughts when he broke the model down into elements and singled out its major attributes, then turn back to the image of the person portrayed by the artist and try to understand what elements and attributes he ruled out and which of them he found stable and fundamental for grasping the essence of this specific person, his or her character and appearance. After that procede to analyzing the artistic devices and techniques. Look at the lines, forms and colours – they are deeply symbolic with cubists. Broken down, flowing or straight lines will always reveal emotions – passion, horror or love. Analyze the colours: the main colour fields and contrasts, the position of colour patches towards one another and their layout on the canvas, think of the meaning of the colour: yellow may stand for envy or joy; blue – for the universe and quietude; black – for silence and emptiness etc. Forms are yet another aspect to be thoroughly considered: circle represents movement; square – limits and tangible world; triangle – the thought. Wondering how you would look in a cubist portrait? Which stable attributes would be singled out? What colours would be chosen?
