Saturday, December 03, 2011

Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies



















Arne Glimcher's Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies (2008) has been assailed by critics from various angles, but I disagree with their spirit. This film brings back the time, barely a century old yet gone forever, right before the first of the first two world wars. There is a lot of footage from early silent pioneers such as the Lumière brothers, and it's wonderful, short enough even for an ADHD attention span.

Of course Picasso and Braque were influenced by the movies -- their exhuberance about everything around them, including the first successful attempts to represent time in motion through moving pictures -- must have felt impossible to contain. These were people fully alive and very observant and on the move all at once.

Moving pictures transformed the way we as human beings can reflect about ourselves -- before photography and movies, one had to rely on paintings, etchings, sketches or verbal descriptions, at best, to "see" a subject beyond the imaginary projections of written description.   














Today's Rune: Defense.

2 comments:

JR's Thumbprints said...

How does one learn to paint like a child, yet become so brilliant in doing it? Picasso certainly was a free spirit as well.

t said...

Lumiere is such a nice name. One time I was researching names that mean "light", and Lumiere was one of my favourite, especially being so rare. I love Candes too, so simple. There was also Noor. Then the usual stuff like Claire.

Go free that spirit.