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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Picasso's Weeping Woman (PIC) (Annotations)

21:17 / 10.04.05

Essentially what you're saying is you don't have a problem with cubist art, but personally most of it doesn't do a lot for you, apart from this peice.

Which is fine- but I would argue that to me, Picasso's "Weeping Woman" is a beautiful painting. I'm not saying your taste is wrong, hey we're all different, just that to say that most cubist art is not beautiful is a bit of a generalisition, no? As you've explained what you like about this peice, perhaps you could explain what you dislike about other peices?

I think another interesting thing to draw out of this is the concept of "liveable" art that you mention: the idea that though you appreciate Picasso's Guernica, you wouldn't want it in your house. Which is of course personal taste again, but I think there's a deep question here about lifestyle and the inputs you choose. I mean, I don't always like the news that's reported in the newspaper, but I couldn't stand living without it. (-Legba)

This is pretty much exactly what I didn't want to end up talking about. Anyway. Weeping Woman. I like it. It's jarring and disquieting and something about that bleached out jagged bit in the middle scares me. But I wouldn't want to eat breakfast with it every morning for fourty years.

I guess I think this is beautiful and striking, but not necessarily pleasant. And, especially with cubism, that troika is rare. And while I can dig unpleasant art, I think liveable art that still manages to be charged (?) (that is - not bland, still vital, still feels important) is a rarity.

Maybe I'm old. I dunno - but this painting gets filed alongside Throbbing Gristle and the like in my mental shelving system. Nice to visit, but not the kind of painting you want to share a living space with.

22:25 / 10.04.05

The sense of angst in it is one of the reasons I don't think I could live with it on a day to day basis. She looks overwraught with worry and sadness, she looks to me like she's biting her nails. I don't know if she actually is.

In terms of colour its bright and bold, yet the angsty part (in the centre) is greyish. It's like the monotone highlights the feeling.

All Acting Regiment

20:00 / 13.04.05

The sense of angst in it is one of the reasons I don't think I could live with it on a day to day basis.

I can understand this...I think that the reason I like the picture is because it has suceeded at summing these abstract things up, however, as an "apex" of angst I can appreciate your view that it would not create a pleasant feeling if you viewed it each and every day.

Maybe I'm just different- I would quite happily have a painting like this and see it everyday, or at least have it in a room where I spent some time every day. The fact that is angst-filled doesn't stop me from liking it and getting continued satisfaction from it.

However, I feel that I would also need some contrasting elements as well, be it paintings, wall hangings, or any other objects that presented a different set of emotions.

The same with books- I can't read Graham Greene and Primo Levi in a row, and sometimes in the case of Levi I can't even face reading more than a page.

But at the same time, I couldn't live with only happy books/paintings.

Tryphena Absent

20:55 / 13.04.05

Artistically I love this painting. The very idea that this upset woman is a stained glass window gets to the core of feelings of immense fragility and vulnerability. Stained glass tends to be very thin, quite easy to break and when it does break it's terribly jagged. The likeness of her face then is important.

But likewise I couldn't live with this on a wall.

I don't really think that's any criteria to base a love of art on though. I couldn't have a Rothko on my wall because technically it would disintegrate, I wouldn't have about half of the Kandinsky's on my wall because they're too brash or a Mondrian because I think that on their own the vast majority of them are quite boring. I would never have a pre-Raph in the house because the romanticism is so cliched and traditional and I'll probably never have enough space for an installation. That isn't a consideration for me when looking at art, generally I prefer it in an exhibited setting.

I like this painting, I prefer the vast majority of Picasso's cubist work to Leger and I think this is a more interesting painting because it provokes conflicting emotions. I also think it's a simpler painting to analyse because there is less to analyse. The focus is clear and your analysis can be based on a woman. How Leger feels about the beer mug is less obvious. Weeping Woman is compassionate painting.

Tryphena Absent

20:59 / 13.04.05

Art for me is very much about the original work (I might have to revitalise the thread on Benjamin actually and repeat this there). When I examine a work I like to look at the piece as it was created, the brushstrokes on a painting make it whole, the underside of an installation is excrutiatingly important. I'm the person in a gallery who gets down on their hands and knees and gazes at the bits you can't see from any other angle, so a piece in another setting- a printed reproduction- generally doesn't get my rocks off in the same way.

All Acting Regiment

07:32 / 14.04.05

I suppose this is why we have art galleries- aside from issues of ownership and accesibility for the general public, they can create a space where it is OK to be challenged (intellectually), by a Bacon or a Picasso or whatver, whereas in the world outside it is not OK to be challenged- possibly because of all the very genuine real life challenges such as people mugging you, work, stress etc.

Which again is all well and good, but I think a lot of people actually live complacent lives- people out in suburbia or the estates- maybe not easy lives, but lives free of intellectual challenge, leading to a sort of intellectual rot because they never visit the place we allocate to intellectual challenges. Same goes for museums as well as galleries.

Perhaps then, we should encourage challenge "in the home"- I feel that art in the home can be to art in a gallery what a person's own shrine might be compared to statuary in a temple- something that they have a personal interraction with.

Tryphena Absent

14:02 / 14.04.05

But in choosing to put something in your home you're not going to choose something that might make you uncomfortable or would necessarily be intellectually challenging. Your home is a place in which you're safe from the challenges of the outside world. Most of the art that people put in their homes- and a vast number of people do have art on their walls, even if those are just pictures from magazines that type of photography is art- are pictures that people already have a personal interaction with. Those pictures often aren't challenging, just liked.

To assume that people aren't necessarily challenging themselves because they don't go to galleries is odd- I've known people who absolutely despised modern and contemporary art but would sit with a crossword puzzle for two hours trying to work it out. Their challenges are simply of a different nature. It's important to remember that some people just don't get anything out of looking.

11:28 / 15.04.05

(Possibly off-topic, as it's about living with art and not about Weeping Woman)

But in choosing to put something in your home you're not going to choose something that might make you uncomfortable or would necessarily be intellectually challenging.

Also, does anyone think that after the first few months of looking at whichever picture you chose every day, you would eventually become so used to it that it would cease to challenge you on a daily basis? One of the things I like about galleries is the fact that it requires me to make something of an effort to look at pictures, and I think I get more out of them that way than if all that was required to look at a picture was waking up. This is assuming you're living with the original painting -with a reproduction it's such a surprise to see it in real life and look at just how different the colours and textures are, it tends to sharpen (at least for me) how I feel about the original

I think a lot of people actually live complacent lives- people out in suburbia or the estates

Out of interest, Legba, why do you say this? -I would always have thought of people in the suburbs as being one of the main target markets for galleries and museums.