Nagy Ildikó szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 1980-1988 (MNG Budapest, 1989)
Perneczky, Géza: PICASSO AFTER PICASSO
the late world theatre. Picasso was not a metaphysical thinker, the world created by his late works resembles rather the marketplace scenes, colourful costumes and rustic jokes, of the commedia dellarte. It is only the sheen of perspiration on the calf of the girls' legs, the tallowy hardness of the guardsmen's moustaches, the jet-black glance of the crowned heads slipping behind a curtain and their humiliated valiance remind us that this enormous marionette theatre originates from a real tragedy, the break up scene of The Painter and His Model. Since that time the artist had no art arranged by the world, so he attempted to have the whole world as his art. Reaching the threshold of a period called Post-Modern after his followers, Picasso proved how the specifies of this Ism were applicable to him too. And he could immediately prove where the limitations of such periodizations were. Though the Post-Modern theses were valid for Picasso, yet the aged Picasso was not identical with the Post-Modern period and particularly not with its theses. Through these late pictures, he could outdo the age, which could not keep pace once it had to face his solitude and stentorian appearance with the combinations (game-theory) of eros, irony and artisticperfection, functioning at the press of a button. 10. André Malraux: La Tête d'obsidienne (Gallimard, 1974— Das Haupt aus Obsidian. S. Fischer, Frankfurt, 1975. German edition p. 25.) 11. Ibid. p. 131. 12. Helene Parmelin: Picasso dit. (Paris, 1966—Picasso sagt . . . K. Dresch, München, 1967. German edition p. 122.) 13. Picasso: Confession, noted down by Chr. Zervos. (Cahiers d'Art 1935. No. 10. Included in the volume: Picasso: Wort und Bekenntnis. Arche, Zurich, 1954. p. 29. The text quoted in the motto was published in the 59/60 issue of the Jahresring. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart. 1959. p. 91.) NOTES 1. The complete series of 180 sheets was published in 1954, the year it was completed, in a double issue of Verve: hence the occasionally used name of the series: Suite Verve (Picasso: 180 Dessins, 29/30. 1954. Revue Verve, Paris). Later, only selections of the series were published, such as Picasso: Der Mahler und Modell, Diagones, Zürich, 1972, containing 90 sheets. 2. After the break up Picasso emptied one of their common homes while Françoise was away, though it was registered as Françoise's property: consequently Françoise lost her art collection, books and other personal items. Later, the leading French galleries cancelled their contracts with her (Françoise Gilot was painting too) upon Picasso's pressure: he remained indulgent only towards his children he had by Françoise. (F. Gilot —C. Lake: Life with Picasso. Penguin, 1966.) 3. Jean-François Lyotard: La Condition postmoderne. (Edition de Minuit, 1979.—In German: Das postmoderne Wissen. Edition Passagen. Graz — Wien. 1986. The thoughts are quoted from Chapters 8,9,10 and 13.) 4. Lyotard: op.cit. German edition, p. 122. 5. Ibid. p. 159. 6. Ibid. p. 157-174. 7. Picasso's 'emptying' after cubism, and his 'unemployment' as an avantgarde artist (which could have been achieved by Picasso by cynical plays and by the aimless enhancement of effectiveness) is one of the main topics in John Berger's: Tlie Success and Failure of Picasso. (Penguin: Harmondsworth. 1965— Glanz und Elend des Mahlers Picasso, Rohwolt. das neue Buch. Hamburg, 1973.) 8. Charles Jencks, the best known theoretician of Post-Modern architecture considers architecture a 'language', as contrasted to the 'functional' outlook of international modern architecture, developing (and also withering) the Bauhaus tradition. Consequently the new. eclectic architecture, recommended by him, differs from modern architecture not only in its style but also in its task. (Ch. Jencks: Tlie Language of PostModern Architecture. Academy Ed.. London, 1977. —Die Sprache der postmodernen Architektur, DVA, Stuttgart, 1980). 9. Achille Bonito Oliva's writings on the Italian trans-avant-garde in 1979 and 1980 are of fundamental significance in this respect. Their main thesis is that the idealistic concept of the avant-garde, according to which art should develop along a continuous, straight line, is actually a form of linguistic Darwinism that narrows the ideas of art and should be abandoned. The new eclecticism safeguarding the complete freedom of the artistic self brings about the liberation of the imagination as a subjective and poetic art free of all radicalism.
