Picasso and Dali

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the work and style of two famous painters, Pablo Picasso, best known for his high abstractions of the Cubist painting style and Salvador Dali, one of the most important leaders of the Surrealist movement. It discusses how they have influenced a wide range of artists and are today considered as the quintessential examples of twentieth century art. It illustrates, through examples of their work, how Picasso as an artist was highly imaginative and original and borrowed heavily from many historical examples which aided him in developing new painting styles. Salvador Dali, like many of his surrealist contemporaries, sought inspiration from a love for fantasy and studied the writings of Sigmund Freud regarding the human subconscious mind which inspired him to "systematize confusion" through his paintings.

From the Paper:

"The Cubism style of painting as practiced by Pablo Picasso is best represented by his Accordionist (1911, oil on canvas), a construction of large intersecting planes that suggest the forms of a man with his instrument. Host of smaller shapes, each a simplification of some aspects of the original subject, hover in and interpenetrate the larger planes. The total effect is that of a new kind of pictorial reality. The viewer is no longer obligated to contemplate merely a man playing an accordion, but is allowed to explore the canvas and probe its myriad of objects that have been disintegrated and then reintegrated which offers a great variety of views from many different angles and tangents."

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