PICASSO 1932: LOVE | FAME | TRAGEDY First Thoughts

On Monday I went to see Picasso 1932: Love Fame Tragedy at Tate Modern.

This was a very moving exhibition (I cried in the cafe afterwards) of an especially creative and productive year of Picasso's life, set against a back drop of economic depression and mass unemployment in Europe, leading to the hardening of both left and right wing politics and foreshadowing war.

The exhibition moves through ten phases of the year, each of them rich and far too extravagant to contain in one post. Here, I've picked out a few art works that had particular resonance for me as a maker and for my interest in colour and texture.

Actually, this is for @cryptocariad and the discussions we've had about drawing. It's hard to represent the beauty of the original in this medium. It's a large drawing perhaps four feet by six feet, and a finished artwork, not a study for a painting: the drawings ... "often relate to paintings on similar themes albeit with a focus on line and form rather than colour. Rubbings, erasures and over-drawing make visible the process of image construction."

I found this drawing very moving. There was something about the sheer skill, the confidence with which the lines were drawn, the perfection and tenderness of the shape of the head, like a baby's, that was breathtaking. It was so peaceful and seemed to embody love in its lines and shapes. He was, of course, in love with the model, a young woman, Marie-Therese Walter, but to be able to convey that in a drawn line is extraordinary.

A detail of a larger still life (Bust, Dish and Palette) with allusions to classical painting.

I've chosen this detail because of the colours of the fruit. The whole painting looks a bit odd and bland; and then, when you start to look closer (because it is so very strange), you realise the deftness of the colouring of the fruit, light and bright against the muddiness of the background.

I liked these colours. I bought a set of pencils from the shop afterwards and tried to re-create them. I feel I want to play with them some more, perhaps with paints. The following day I visited Liberty's and spent some time trying to match the colours against the various yarns. (Liberty's was very disappointing. It was as if they didn't know I was coming. As well, they have turned part of the Haberdashery department into Customer Collections, blocking one of the lovely leaded windows. What were they thinking?)

This was a very complex painting with references to the new concepts and language of psycho-analysis and the work of Freud and Jung. Again, the Internet hardly does justice to the colours and impact of the painting.

I've chosen this, again, because of the colours. The painting is called Rest and is one of a series of a woman sitting in an armchair. The painting is anything but restful and the sequence of red, orange and yellow above the seated figure almost fizzes. I love the flow of the shapes in the lower half of the armchair and the juxtaposition of the colours.

The background is also interesting - the mosaics of the wallpaper, calm on the right of the painting and agitated on the left. The rich texturing of the lower part of the wall reminded me of the textures in Shortbread Inspirations.

Returning to the figure, Picasso has done something interesting with the hair - the sharp black lines. These are painted with a loaded brush which dries towards the end of the stroke, giving a feathered finish, and a blob of paint has been added for emphasis between the strokes at the base of the hair.

This final picture for today is a detail from The Rescue, a painting from the end of 1932. The subject of The Rescue is very dark and ambiguous. The figures are depicted in murky colours and it isn't entirely clear what is happening. The figures are set against a background, dark in some places, with a curious chiascuro effect reminiscent of Caravaggio. This detail shows a little of the technique that Picasso used to achieve the effect.

The background was painted thickly with white, with ridges and texture in the paint, and allowed to dry completely before being overpainted with green. In thise section, Picasso has scraped back some of the green, creating a lighter effect, and then dabbed thick white petals. The feeling of this painting is ominous, disorienting, worrying, even frightening.

I was envious of Picasso and his chaotic studio above his apartment in Paris, and the eighteenth-century chateau in Normandy with a sculpture studio in one of the stables. All this work poured out of him, sometimes a painting every day.

'The work that one does is a way of keeping a diary.' Picasso

Today, I cleared the room that is going to be my studio.