Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Picasso's Bird Keeper Painting of Interior by k Madison Moore



Picasso's Bird Keeper
©kMadisonMoore2014

Painting with The Masters
Art within Art Series

11 x 14 Interior Oil Paining on Canvas

SOLD


Well, I am finally back to painting after
a couple of weeks of being really, really sick.
This one scared me but I am feeling much better
and getting back to painting slowly.

I was working on this one when I got sick so not
too much to finish it. I had no idea that Picasso
loved birds so much. It's amazing what I learn by
researching The Masters, always something new.

I painted all the little birds similar to the way he painted
his and the Dove in the upper left of the window is present 
as well.  I figured since he had so many birds that he probably
would have had a Bird Keeper and she would be cubic such
as his style.

The window scene is similar to a scene that he painted from 
his studio window in Barcelona

Picasso's Dove was chosen as the emblem of 
congress, it became a symbol of the peace 
movement.

I know this is a bit long but is so interesting.

Enjoy
Picasso's Bird Keeper


By ARTELPLUS | Published: APRIL 2, 2013
Pigeons, or doves, have always been in Picasso’s life, and Picasso knew their habits and character like no one else. His father, Jose Ruiz Blasco, was an art teacher, and very often he painted doves. To attach his son to painting, he asked his son to draw pigeons’ feet. Later, Picasso even kept a dovecote. But Picasso knew that pigeons and doves are rather cruel and capricious birds. So why it was Picasso who became the author of the most famous symbol of peace – “Dove of Peace”?
 Picasso’s father, José Ruiz Blasco, was an art teacher and a passionate lover of birds. He held a pigeonry and specialized in painting of realistic images of birds. When Pablo learned to handle the brush, his father allowed him to draw the bird’s feet. His canvas “Child with a Dove“, which he painted in 1901, was most likely connected with his experiences in childhood, and to some extent, we can imagine that this child is little Pablo.


Child and a Dove by Pablo Picasso

 Later, Picasso used to paint pictures where doves and pigeons had a central place.  For example, in 1937, he finished his work “Birds in a cage”. It is believed that the painting depicts the historical battle of the two of his lovers in his studio in Paris. The white Dove in the painting is Marie-Therese Walter, and the black one, respectively – Dora Maar. Picasso saw in the dove a strong, cruel and capricious bird despite its apparent fragility and vulnerability.

 

Birds in a cage by Pablo Picasso

 In 1949, Louis Aragon, a French poet and a member of the Communist Party, visited Picasso. He was looking for a picture for posters commemorating the Peace Conference in Paris. He liked the Picasso’s lithograph depicting a dove. The lithograph was very beautiful, it was all a play of colors and shades of white and gray. Besides, it was a Milano dove that was portrayed on the lithograph, presented to Picasso by Henri Matisse. Unlike ordinary pigeons, the feet of the Milano dove were completely covered with feathers, which looked very beautiful and unusual. So it was that dove that Aragon decided to make a symbol of peace.
Many will think over, why it was the dove, not a swan or a lark? In fact, the image of a dove has been taken by us as a symbol of hope. Dove appears in myths of the Ancient Rome when doves of the love goddess Venus nested in the helmet of Mars, the Roman god of war. And the god of war, not to destroy their nest, abandoned another bloody idea.
 The pigeon is very strongly associated with Christianity, as it was he who brought the olive branch to the Noah’s ship in a sign that the flood was over and the God was in peace with people. In addition, Dove – became a symbol of the Holy Spirit.It was formally adopted by the Church Fathers at the Council of Constantinople in 536. According to one legend, two doves flew to the church where the Cardinal was elected as new Pope and sat down on his shoulders. Since then Popes are often portrayed with two doves on their shoulders. In Islam the dove is very honored, too, because he helped Mohammed to escape from his pursuers.
 Picasso himself never believed that a symbol of peace should be the dove, however, he did not object to Aragon’s choice.  He only said sarcastically: “The poor man! He doesn’t know anything about pigeons! And as for the gentle dove, what a myth that is!  They’re very cruel.  I had some here and they pecked a poor little pigeon to death because they didn’t like it. They pecked its eyes out, then pulled it to pieces. It was horrible.  How’s that for a symbol of Peace? “
 Despite his sarcastic remarks about the dove as a symbol of peace, Picasso was a real fighter forpeace. As a witness of the civil war in his native Spain, he experienced the horrors of war    firsthand. On April 26, 1937, the Basque town of Guernica was firebombed by Nazi planes and was almost completely wiped out. The bombing killed more than 1,600 people. The same year, the Spanish government asked Picasso to make a painting in tribute to Guernica, to show it in the World Exhibition in Paris. The artist presented a picture in May 1937. Being huge in size, 3.5 m high and 7.8 m wide, it was painted with oil in black and white for one month. This painting about the horrors of war has become one of the strongest declarations for peace by Picasso. Once a Nazi officer, seeing the photo of Guernica on the table, asked him: “Did you do that?” “No” – said the artist – “you did it.”
 The opening of the Congress coincided with the birth of the second Picasso’s daughter from Francoise Gilot. Picasso didn’t think much about how to name a girl  - his daughter was named Paloma, which stands for dove in Spanish.
 After Picasso’s dove was chosen as the emblem of the Congress, it became a symbol of the peace movement. The artist later made some more drawings of his famous dove of peace. From a realistic classical picture the dove was later developed by the artist in a simple line drawing graphically understood by all, regardless of religion and culture.


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