Historic 20th century painting on display

The works of Pablo Picasso, Balthus and Gino Severini at Palazzo Reale in Milan and Venice

The paintings, styles, trends, and memories of the 20th century are being compared in a remarkable exhibit. Most importantly, the best artists who left their mark on that century are being compared: Balthus, Picasso, and Severini, with exhibitions being held respectively at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Palazzo Reale in Milan, and at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum.
In regards to the Spanish master, 200 masterpieces from 1898 to 1972 are on display until January 27, in a retrospective that sheds light in particular on the most intimate and private Picasso: the father, the husband, the lover. The exhibition's curators are Bernard Ruiz Picasso, Bernice Rose, and Paloma Picasso; the catalogue is being published by Electa.
The path chosen also includes engravings, sculptures, ceramics, bronzes, ballet costumes (Parade, written by Jean Cocteau for Serge de Diaghilev's Ballets Russes), all of them linked to extraordinary female figures who influenced Picasso's work in decisive ways.
His first partner, Fernande Olivier, shared with him the desolate life of the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre. Those were the years of Guillaume Apollinaire, Gertrude Stein, and Pierre Reverdy; Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting that required nine months of work and became the manifesto of Cubism. Some years later, it was the turn of the Russian dancer Olga Kokhlova, an aristocratic and sophisticated beauty, star of the Ballets Russes, the mother of Paulo: she's often portrayed as the Virgin looking upon her Child. In Picasso's life, there was the sudden appearance of Marie Thérèse Walter, a sensual 17-year-old, full of eroticism, often idealized as Ariadne and in orgiastic Bacchanals. Critics spoke of a "disconcerting style metamorphosis, characterized by a diffuse sexual symbolism."
The Thirties were the era of the Spanish Civil War, an era of political commitment and militancy. Picasso mixed with Robert Desnos, André Breton, and Paul Eluard; he began painting Guernica and cultivating his relationship with Dora Maar, who will later be left in favour of Francoise Gilot (the mother of Claude and Paloma) and Jacqueline Roque, the last one.
"Picasso was a strange fellow who lived in isolation," remembers Marta Marzotto. "Wearing red trousers and a striped tee-shirt he almost resembled a clown. He disliked dressing up and very rarely went to a tailor. He painted at night; I don't know why, maybe he was an insomniac." Countess Marzotto does not hesitate in talking about her knowledge of Picasso, mediated by her partner, painter Renato Guttuso. "Once, Picasso and Guttuso were in a small restaurant on the Côte d'Azur, looking upon some very bad paintings of crustaceans, molluscs, and other shellfish. Picasso told Renato: 'Though I've never seen worse paintings, I like to look at them. I've always been a drunkard. The quality of wine is less important than having some. Occasionally, it is the same with painting.'"
Art scholar and critic Giuseppe Selvaggi, knew Picasso in Villauris, his last home. "Picasso was frightened by old age, he did not want to accept death, couldn't stand to look at his body corrupted and devastated by the passage of time. His terror was physical as well as psychological; this is understandable, since he was 90. Very soon he would pass away. He was tired, ill," adds Selvaggi. "Only his eyes were the same of his younger years: dark, penetrating, wizard's eyes. Typical of Spaniards. I recall his bitter confession to José Ortega and Louis Aragon: 'Look, how we end up, how our beauty is consumed. A deadly decadence.'"
Giuseppe Selvaggi also mentions Arias, a curious fellow who lived near Picasso, his personal barber. "He was a Spanish exile of Jewish heritage, with absolute power over Picasso. Every morning he gave Picasso a shave and a haircut, and also applied monstrous leeches all over his body. Picasso thought that they served to prevent a stroke."
Also on the Lagoon, until October 28 one can visit Gino Severini. La Danza 1909-1916. The exhibition has been prepared by Daniela Fonti and the catalogue printed by Skira.
Fifty years after the XXV Venice Biennale, which celebrated Severini the Futurist, and almost one century after another exhibition in London (Marlborough Gallery, 1913), this new exhibition gives us an unprecedented portrait of this artist and his relationship with dance, which was a constant source of inspiration to him. "Maybe this is just blind chance, an extraordinary coincidence. In times of movie ballets (e.g. Moulin Rouge, starring Nicole Kidman) Italy celebrates Severini, his undisputed passion for dance and for turn-of-the-century Paris, and especially the influence exerted on his painting by Montmartre. His was almost an obsession for portraying cabarets and music halls," clarifies Daniela Fonti. "Not just the heritage of 19th-century imagination, dance for Severini embodied the icon of modernity itself, the synthesis of a universe based on rhythmic principles, and on the physical and physiological involvement of the audience."
The exhibition showcases 50 works by Severini as well as some masterpieces by other artists fascinated by Terpsichore, the muse of dance: Balla, Sironi, Boccioni, Depero, Prampolini, Cominetti, Seurat, Gaudier-Brzeska, Nevison, Lewis, Man Ray, and Doesburg.
The Peggy Guggenheim also remembers dancers Isadora Duncan and Loie Fuller, two myths of the 20th century who anticipated choreographic trends and styles, both friends and frequent guests of sculptor Auguste Rodin (who's also showcased with some sketches of dancers in action), whom they often performed for.
The exhibition is completed by an audio-visual session (Gino Severini, a movie filmed in 1977 by director Sandro Franchina) and a video-collage of vintage ballets prepared by Anna Maria Cerrato. The atmosphere is enhanced by music performed on a piano by Daniele Lombardi.

Publication Date: 2001-10-21
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=531