A major exhibition on Picasso's relationship with antiquity comes to Milan's Palazzo Reale this fall

It will be held from October 18, 2018 to February 17, 2019 the next major exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan: titled Picasso Metamorphosis, promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan - Culture, Palazzo Reale and MondoMostreSkira, the exhibition and curated by Pascale Picard, director of the Civic Museums of Avignon, will be totally dedicated to the relationship between Pablo Picasso (Malaga, 1881 - Mougins, 1973) and myth and antiquity. This is a new chapter in the path of in-depth study that has led the Milanese institute several times to devote exhibitions to the great Spanish painter: a true cycle that began with the exhibition of Guernica in the Sala delle Cariatidi, in 1953, then continued in 2001 with the major anthological exhibition and in 2012 with a new monograph on techniques and means of expression.

“When in 1953,” said Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala, “Picasso chose Milan and the Sala delle Cariatidi of the Palazzo Reale, partly destroyed by the war, to show the world Guernica, a symbol of his extraordinary expressive capacity, a unique bond was born between his genius and our city and made evident, with each return of his works, by a passionate public participation. This was the case in 2001 with 450,000 visitors and in 2012 with more than half a million. So there is no doubt that Milan likes Picasso and that thanks to the study and work of the curators and organizers the cultural proposal has always lived up to expectations. This is why we are confident that this new exhibition, which will be at the Palazzo Reale from next October, will also be able to surprise again, strong in the quality and value of a project that has chosen the theme of mythology as its leitmotif, to reveal as yet unpublished aspects of the production of this exceptional artist.”

The exhibition will be open Mondays from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m., Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and Thursdays and Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. The ticket office will close one hour earlier. Prices: full price 14 euros, reduced 12 euros for children and young people aged 6 to 26, over 65, disabled, groups of minimum 15 and maximum 25 people, conventioned; special reduced 6 euros for schools, TCI and FAI groups, non-accredited journalists, other conventioned; free for children under 6, tour guides, accredited journalists and other conventioned. Info at www.mostrapicassomilano.it.

There will be six sections of the exhibition, displaying works by Picasso along with ancient artworks that profoundly influenced him. Below is a list and summary of all the sections.

1. Mythology of the Kiss - Ingres, Rodin, Picasso

With the invention of the Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), recognized as the manifesto of a new aesthetic, Picasso breaks down the codes of academic art practice. But he does so by resting on his own classical training, feeding on the archetypes of art history, where he discovers forms suited to the metamorphosis of existing artistic codes. Before him, it was Ingres and Rodin who paved the way. The introduction to the exhibition brings the three artists together around the theme of the kiss with some of Picasso’s paintings counterpointed by two emblematic works: Rodin’s The Kiss and Ingres’ Paolo and Francesca. The comparison reveals how Picasso’s approach leads to a free and deeply innovative interpretation of antiquity. Witness to this are the various versions of The Kiss in the exhibition, different from each other and marked by an obvious erotic tension that Picasso would decline throughout his career, from 1899 until 1970. This drive immediately highlights how one of the centers of his work is his relationship with the feminine universe, just as the theme of the artist and his models in the studio also turns out to be highly treated.

2. Ariadne between Minotaur and Faun.

Picasso’s aesthetic quest from the outset drew on the many depictions of fantastical beings found in the mythological repertoire. Among his recurring points of reference are hybrid figures torn between human and animal, good and evil, life and death. His works are populated by male and female Fauns-represented in the pen-and-ink drawings Faun , Horse and Bird (1936) and Faun (1937) and in the famous oil painting Head of Faun (1938)-but also by minotaurs and centaurs. The figure of Ariadne, an emblem of beauty that embodies renewal between betrayal and amorous idyll, suggests the idea of perpetual, cyclical rebirth. In Picasso’s work, there are numerous odalisques sunk in sleep that harken back to the Vatican’s famous Sleeping Ariadne. The artist develops themes around her figure that are particularly dear to him: the Minotaur, the arena, war, amorous passion, and the perpetual intoxication of life embodied in the Bacchic procession. The alluring beauty of Ariadne offered for contemplation is present in a series of depictions with all the expressions of amorous emotion: from serene eroticism to fantasies of abduction and rape to which the hybrid beings that flank her refer. Examples of this transposition are the etching Thoughtful Boy Watching over a Sleeping Woman by Candlelight (1934); the pencil drawings Two Figures (1933); Woman with Arms Crossed Abo ve Her Head (1939) and Studies of Standing Nude with Arms Above Her Head (1946); and the various female nudes: the oils Lying N ude (1932) and Nude in a Garden (1934); the pen and ink drawings The Sculptor and His Model (1931), Nude Combing Her Hair (1954), and Bacchanal (1955).

3. At the Source of the Ancient - The Louvre

Picasso’s virtuosity developed from his adolescence in contact with an academic practice whose technique and repertoire he mastered perfectly, having assimilated the forms of Greek sculpture. This approach developed further on his trip to Italy, to Rome and Naples, in 1917 and at his meeting with Olga Khokhlova. Classical inspiration mitigates the intense Cubist experience in these years. The Fountain (1921), was inspired by a personification of the Nile River kept at the Capitol in Rome but also by a painting by Ingres, and would result - also in 1921 - in the paintings of the Three Women at the Fountain, whose subject was inspired by a painting of a Greek vase kept in the Louvre. Picasso often visited this museum and was inspired by the figures of Greek bas-reliefs for his painting Seated Woman (1920), as for the late Seated Nude in an Armchair (1963), his bronze Standing Man (1942), and his statue The Man with the Ram (1943), reinterpreted in an original key far removed from the hieraticism of Hellenistic statues.

4. The Dyplon’s “Demoiselles”: between Greeks, Etruscans and Iberians

Picasso visited the Louvre regularly from 1901 and would continue his visits after World War II. Between 1901 and 1912, from the accounts of his first companion Fernande Olivier and the painter-writer Ardengo Soffici, he would return there numerous times, discovering the archaic periods and the painting of Greek vases of the geometric period, whose extreme stylization attracted his attention. The outline motifs of the figures he observes play a fundamental role in the process of elaborating the Demoiselles d’Avignon as shown in the various pencil studies of nudes exhibited in this section, but also in the oils Seated Nude (1906-1907), Seated Small Nude (1907), and the wooden sculptures Three Nudes (1907), which later evolved into the threadlike wooden sculptures Seated Woman, Standing Woman (1930) that herald Giacometti’s work but were inspired by the bronzes of Etruscan art. Greek Cycladic art also pervades the magnificent painting Seated Nude on Green Ground (1946) or again the bronze series The Bathers (1956). Finally, Picasso was inspired by his collection of more than ninety pieces of Iberian bronze votive offerings, several examples of which are shown for the first time in this exhibition.

5. The antiquity of metamorphoses.

The spectacular sculpture The Woman in the Garden (1932) in welded iron used as a recycled material and intentionally painted white like a marble opens this section to introduce Ovid’s Metamorphoses, of which Picasso illustrated in 1931 a famous edition published by Albert Skira and of which Skira, on the occasion of the exhibition, will reissue the anastatic copy. The importance of the practice of etching in Picasso’s work applied to the printed edition allows here to land on the artist’s book. The small print run of the work and the way Picasso etches the copper plate with a simple stroke creates an effect that competes with drawing. The graphic effect equally references the ancient decorations of the painted vases. The scenes imagined by Picasso accompany the text and emphasize the importance of the literary source in the artist’s interpretation of it. Ovid’s Metamorphoses reappears in some subject in the famous Vollard suite (1933-1935), of which there will be some sheets, which presents the artist in the role of sculptor at work with the model evoking the myth of Pygmalion, undoubtedly among Picasso’s favorite subjects. This fascination with the appropriation of femininity can lead to erotic or rape scenes thus recalling ancient scenes between fauns and bacchae.

6. Anthropology of the ancient

Ceramics is the protagonist of this sixth and final section. Picasso discovered it in the postwar period, opening a new chapter of its declinations from antiquity and, experimenting with the artistic potential of painted terracotta, evolved the object from its function of use to the status of a work of art. As in antiquity, the potter and the painter cohabit in the studio and create together. Thus potter Suzanne Ramier incites Picasso to search for new vessel profiles and stimulates consultation of archaeological repertoires. This immersion in the ancestral universe of potters’ studios evokes in Picasso the memory of Pompeii and reveals his taste for all forms of decorative or artistic expression from the Roman environment. Picasso uses various recycled studio materials, fragments of culinary containers and tiles to arrive at extraordinary results as in the terracottas: Vase, Woman with Mantle (1949), Fragment of Piñata Decorated with a Face (1950), Seated Double Flute Player (1958); or in the beautiful ceramics Tripod Vase with Woman’s Face (1950), Bird Shaped Flower Holder (1950-1951), Pitcher with Bull (1957).

Image: Pablo Picasso, The Kiss (1969; oil on canvas, 97x130 cm; Paris, Musée National Picasso). © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris)/Jean-Gilles Berizzi/ dist. Alinari

A major exhibition on Picasso's relationship with antiquity comes to Milan's Palazzo Reale this fall

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.