Anjas’ Theme Of The Week: Picasso week 9: Classicism and surrealism

Picasso: Classicism and surrealism

Picasso - Bust of a woman, arms raised, 1922

Something for everyone!
A few day's ago someone commented to one of my Picasso posts en said that he wasn't very impressed by Picasso painting. I must say that I don't understand that at all. If you have been following my posts about him, you must have noticed that Picasso painted in every style and technique there was is his time. He painted beautiful realistic paintings like "Olga" a painting in this blog to surrealism, symbolism like the Quernica and cubism.
See this post.
Something for everyone!

About Picasso and Classicism and surrealism: (Wikipedia)
In the period following the upheaval of World War I, Picasso produced work in a neoclassical style. This "return to order" is evident in the work of many European artists in the 1920s, including André Derain, Giorgio de Chirico, Gino Severini, the artists of the New Objectivity movement and of the Novecento Italiano movement.

Picasso - Two nude women, 1920

Picasso’s paintings and drawings from this period frequently recall the work of Raphael and Ingres.

During the 1930s, the minotaur replaced the harlequin as a common motif in his work. His use of the minotaur came partly from his contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol, and it appears in Picasso’s Guernica. The minotaur and Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter are heavily featured in his celebrated Vollard Suite of etchings.
Guernica, 1937, Museo Reina Sofia Arguably Picasso's most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War—Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, "It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them."

Picasso - Quernica 1937

Guernica was on display in New York’s Museum of Modern Art for many years. In 1981, it was returned to Spain and was on exhibit at the Casón del Buen Retiro. In 1992 the painting was put on display in Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum when it opened. For more about the Quernica check out this post.