Comparing Paintings by Pablo Picasso and Alberto Morrocco

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Comparing Paintings by Pablo Picasso and Alberto Morrocco

I have decided to contrast and compare paintings by cubist artist

Pablo Picasso and contemporary artist Alberto Morrocco.

I have studied their paintings to find out their influences and any

similarities between their work. I have tried to find a source of their

motivation and reason for their interpretations.

Firstly, I am going to write about cubist artist, Pablo Picasso.

Inspired by artist Paul Cezanne, the father of analytical cubism,

Picasso attempted many styles of work. He experimented with different

media and use of colour, throughout his artistic career. His paintings

reflected his moods and attitudes, which changed several times during

the course of his life. As a result of this, groups of his painting

can be separated into 'periods'. A very famous period Picasso

developed was his 'Blue Period', where the paintings of this time were

blue in colour and portrayed him to be unhappy. An example of this is

' The Tragedy' painted in 1903. The painting is of a family standing

on a beach, frozen like statues. In my perception, it takes on the

image of a snapshot, eternally showing these still lonely figures. The

painting looks cold due to Picasso's use of blue, submitting further

the idea of unintimacy and absence of love within this solemn family.

I understand why Picasso adopted such a melancholy atmosphere; it was

a result of his friend committing suicide in 1901. His use of thick

brush strokes and realistic perception of a family drowned by the

presence of poverty, portray an image of deep sorrow and sadness.

A painting that resembles Picasso's 'The Tragedy' is the 'Siesta' by

Alberto Morrocco painted in 1971. Picasso and artist Henri Matisse had

great influence Alberto Morrocco. Inspiration also came from his

principal teacher James Cowie, who encouraged Morrocco to make

painting his career.

The 'Siesta' shows a female child sleeping naked on a table. Sitting

behind her is a woman, presumably her mother, who is awake and holing

a sunflower. This also can be perceived as a photographic image. I

feel as though the woman is staring directly at the camera, her eyes

fixated upon me. This highlights one similarity between Morrocco's

'Siesta' and Picasso's 'The Tragedy' purely by choice of composition.

Another similarity I have discovered is that both art...

... middle of paper ...

...to be in this painting, the egg would have rolled off.

Both these paintings are similar also in colour. The colours used are

bright, strong and effective. I believe that the colour concepts bring

each painting to life. Picasso used natural colours to represent the

natural significance of the objects in this painting. This makes me

feel comfortable and at peace. Morrocco chose olive green, reds and

blues to capture the essence of his native Italy. This, in my opinion,

gives the painting a special quality and is very pleasing to look at.

Picasso's 'Bread Fruit Dish on a Table' is a fantastic example of how

he experimented with shape and tried to teach himself and learn

through experience the techniques of analytical cubism. He later used

this new knowledge to develop cubism further and create a new, unique

style which he called synthetic cubism.

Alberto Morrocco sought inspiration from Picasso's cubist phase and

tried out the style himself. ' Homage a Braque' is a very interesting

painting which clearly shows similarities between his paintings and

those by Pablo Picasso. However, Morrocco gave an incentive of himself

into his painting making it his own masterpiece.

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