Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Dominant

1905

Titian and the End of the Venetian Renaissance by Tom Nichols was published last year by Reaktion. My first action after finishing the book was to start looking at digitized Picasso paintings at the Tate. The Tom Nichols reading of Titian had reminded me forcefully of the main character in T.J. Clark's Picasso and Truth.

Picasso (immigrant artist dominating 20th century Paris) worked four centuries later then Titian (immigrant artist dominating 16th century Venice). Each produced a huge range of work, each was good at crushing artistic competition, each became unusually wealthy. Each was also posthumously accused of having destroyed the art-form he practiced.

1909

1913

1923

1932

1936

1938

1948

1952

1954

1968


Picasso in person, photographed by Herbert List