AD4003 ASSESSMENT

EVALUATION OF THE ILLUSTRATIVE WORKS OF PABLO PICASSO AND SALVADOR DALI ASSESSMENT AD4003 BY COURTNEY SQUIRE

For this evaluation we were given five artists Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, George Grosz, Paul Klee and Salvador Dali, which involved choosing two artists out of the five to compare their beginning illustrative work such as illustrative books, magazine covers, etchings and prints compared to their later work such as paintings and evaluate the adaptations. The two artists I have chosen are Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali

PABLO PICASSO

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, who was famously known as Pablo Picasso or Picasso for short, was a Spanish citizen born on the 25^th of October 1881 and died on the 8 April 1973. Picasso became a painter sculptor, printmaker, ceramist and stage designer

picasso did a lot of illustrative work over his life time, 'he created more than 34,000 book illustrations in his including etchings for Ovid’s The Metamorphoses, Balzac’s The Unknown Masterpiece, and L’Histoire Naturelle, a natural history book written in 1749 by Comte de Buffon, from which Picasso selected 31 animals and drew them according to his own imaginings.'1 The good thing about this image is how natural it is and how it captures the cow in its natural form, on the other hand I think that even though its simple and a good thing that could be reproduced easily for illustrative work, it doesn't have much to it and people might argue about what's so amazing about it.

('In the mid 1930's high quality books were published by a company called Limited Edition club, which was famous for re-issuing classics of literature and commissioning contemporary living artists to illustrate 1500 copy signed limited editions'). ('Picasso illustrated one of those books which was the 1934 Pablo Picasso illustrated edition of Aristophanes. Picasso's drawings render several scenes as tender, softly sensual tableaux')2. For example the vivid graphic nature in the drawings of the Greek people hundreds of years ago capture moments and freeze frames. Some of the illustrations may appear to look raunchy, but the almost childlike simplicity of these illustrations of a play about female power and the limits of patriarchy do not seem like the work of a misogynist because of his rounded style of working.

This is a Picasso stage design called (Parade 1917); it was a curtain designed for the ballet Parade and is Picasso's largest painted art piece. Compared to the illustrations for the book 1934 Pablo Picasso illustrated edition of Aristophanes he has still kept the element of capturing a moment.However this painting has an openness to it that’s makes you want to get involved and see what’s actually happening in the scene rather than looking as something and just being a vivid piece of illustration. the adaptations for this work was the fact he had a bigger space to work on, but the distribution is different because only one was made and used for a ballet stage but the book could be printed or reproduced as many time as they wanted because of the smaller scale it was. You see a lot more of Picasso's sketches and smaller illustrations than big paintings like this and I think that's one thing Picasso had to adapt to, but in a way still keeping his illustrative way of thinking.

A picasso print called (portrait of a young girl (after cranach) 1958) ('Picasso only started exploring this technique in linocut in earnest in 1953-4, with the printer Hidalgo Arnéra in Vallauris').3

A Picasso painting called (The old guitarist 1903)4.
the blue period started in 1900 and finished in 1904. This is the period where Picasso painted in shaded of blue and green and ('occasionally warmed by other colours').5 Compared to the linocut you start to get different moods and vibes within the colours and technique. In the blue painting you get a very cold and dark mood as the old man is playing the guitar and start to find deeper meanings like loneliness. On the other hand in the linocut you can already so its a warmer vibe so maybe he was going through different transitions in his life and reflecting them in his art.

In conclusions I see that Pablo Picasso's illustrated work and sketches are very simple and child like but when he moves into different art mediums he keep a simplistic form to it making it not straight forward and neat and replacing that with deeper meanings.

SALVADOR DALI

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol but Salvador Dali for short who was also another Spanish born citizen born 11th of May 1904 and died 23rd of January 1989 but has a very different mind compared to Pablo Picasso. Salvador was best known for his surrealist work like the painting of the melting clocks.

Salvador illustrations for (Alice in Wonderland 1969 edition). Salvador Dali made illustrations for each chapter for Alice in Wonderland becaude of his flamboyant and crazy style for a ('new editions of Lewis Carrolls never out of style surrealist fable')6.

This is a famous painting of Salvador's called (Apparition of face and fruit-dish on a beach 1938)7. This piece of art has several images inside an image and you can see an image has another meaning besides what you see making it surreal and dream like. Compared to the illustration he was able to be more free and expressive within the colours and the way he used his mediums and techniques. but when you see his earlier work of the painting you see he was going for a deeper meaning and spend a great deal of time creating something that would have our minds confused, focus and unfocused on different sections of the image for example the fruit dish creates a face and the mountains in the background create an image of a dog. This piece of imagery has so much going you would end up sunk in the image trying to see what other details are left.

In conclusion to Salvador Dali's work, you can see that he had remained the creative, crazy artist he started out as. There isn't really a comparison to make in his illustrative work and his paintings because of the surrealist artist he is, it just depends how creative he could be with his illustrative work and with Alice in Wonderland it was the perfect place where Salvador could be just as creative and crazy. However in my opinion the only difference between the two is the fact that there are so many levels in his paintings that is becomes hard to understand and stay focused on the whole art piece itself.