Themes of the 1934 Drawing
The Bullfight Theme
One of the most important themes in "The Unknown Masterpiece" is that of the Spanish bullfight.
Running vertically down the right hand side of the drawing is a profile of a huge bull which has been stylized to blend in with the curtain in the same area of the composition.
The female in front of the hidden bull is dressed in the traditional traje de luces or costume of a torrera, a female bullfighter.
From the torrera's clasped hands appears to hang a small striped 'muleta' or bullfighter's cape.
The bull's proximity to the torrera suggests they have joined forces, she appears to be leading the animal onto the stage as they advance towards the female on the left to attack. This interpretation is supported by other Picasso drawings from 1934 in which Picasso's wife Olga attacks his mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter. Supportive of this interpretation we find in Picasso's poems of 1935, descriptions of Marie-Thérèse characterized as a wounded horse in the corrida.
There are further indications in that Marie-Therese appears in "The Unknown Masterpiece, " to be symbolically gored by the horns of the bull.
The horse-shoe or 'U' shaped darts apparently digging into her shoulder symbolize multiple pairs of bull's horns. They appear to emanate from behind Olga's back, where similar forms can be seen balancing on a bunch of bandarillas or darts which are normally plunged into the neck of bull, to weaken it up, before "the moment of truth." The darts or bandarillas have a dual appearance, they also look like a bunch of flowers. Did Olga possibly visit her husband's lover, upon hearing of her pregnancy? One can only speculate, but it would seem that a deception is taking place, an ambush with weapons disguised as a gift. Reininforcing the interpretation, we find in Picasso's play, "The Three Little Girls," a scene in which flowers are thrown like spears. Picasso tended to cling to imagery like this and transform it over periods of years, applying it at times to a variety of media.
There is also a suggested shadowy form of a horses' head, painted in wash, in the darkened area on Marie-Thérèse's shoulder.
Furthermore, the heavily black emphasised 'Z' shape running through her eyes and digging into her neck can be seen as part of a concealed 'Picazzo' signature in the composition. There is a similar, less emphasised 'Z' shape, under the neck of Olga along with other distinctive shapes which if bought together would form the complete "Picazzo" signature.
As far as the figure on the left is concerned the concealed 'Z' alludes to the tradition of blindfolding and severing the vocal chords of the horse. This also has strong poetic associations with the 'silenced' and 'blinded' relationship Picasso enforced upon Marie-Thérèse during the 1920's and 1930's.
Between the central figure and the figure on the left, is a barrera, a protective wooden barrier often seen built into the perimeter of the bullring.
There are also two concealed, subliminal images of bulls heads within the composition. In the upper area, there is an impression of a bull staring outwards at the observer
and in the lower area, there is the impression of a silhouetted bull's head delineated in the lines of ink and black wash.
These emphasised shapes and the symmetry of their' horns, indicate they were intentionally concealed images.
The Crucifixion Theme
"The Unknown Masterpiece" contains many traditional crucifixion motifs which have been interwoven in a complex poetic relationship with other themes in the work and themes beyond it. This gives rise to a variety of interpretative possibilities. It is also one of the principal characteristics of a real Picasso masterpiece.
The two females on either side of the central figure represent the two women in Picasso's life in 1934. In the context of the Crucifixion theme, they are characterized as the two thieves either side of Christ.
The female on the left, is Marie-Thérèse Walter in a pose almost identical to that of the Magdalene in a numerous acclaimed Renaissance Crucifixions, including the great Mond Altarpiece by Raphael.
Picasso was a strict traditionalist, despite his amazing ability for innovation and revolution.
The central figure has one clearly visible outstretched arm, to the left. Another outstretched arm, determining the Crucifixion pose, is concealed in the island of light in the right hand figure's face. This 'flying arm' is a recurrant feature in Picasso's graphics and poems of the 1930's. In "The Unknown Masterpiece," the arm is severed and the end of the stump doubles as the black circle on the right. Severed arms such as this are a mysterious symbolic element in many of Picasso's works, including Guernica.
The spiral light source in the upper left corner and the large black semi circle in the upper right corner, represenet the Sun and Moon traditionally seen in Renaissance Crucifixions. They represent duality and complimentary opposites of life and death and so on. It is also a common underlying theme of Picasso's work in the '20's and '30's.
The ladder, or pair of steps, on which Picasso stands crucified is another traditional Crucifixion motif. It also symbolizes the alchemical ladder or the stages of initiation.
The black almond shaped area In Picasso's abdomen represents the gaping wound in Christ's side, always present in traditional Crucifixions. Out of the wound, appears an enormous flow of blood, represented by the vertical black column of ink between the central and right hand figures. Picasso was known to have made the analogy between his own blood and the ink in his drawings, on more than one occasion.
Rising out of the left hand figure's shoulder, there is a Tau Cross, associated with the Mithraic cult and with alchemy. Behind the female on the right there are some crossed pen lines indicating another Cross. These two crosses reinforce the idea that the two women in the drawing are also undergoing crucifixion.
Either side of the ladder are the shadowy forms of two dark angels, which again are traditional Renaissance crucifixion motifs.
The central figure's thrown back head suggests he is at the moment of death or in a state of transfiguration, analogous to death.
Below his torso, concealed within the wash, there is a half skull whose eye is the black oblong in the center of the composition. The skull is yet another crucifixion motif and one of Picasso's most important symbols.
"The Unknown Masterpiece," contains a number of other references to crucifixion which are linked to the stories of Parsifal, Oedipus, Odin and Frankenstein.
Symbols of the 1934 Drawing
Picasso's Harlequin
Picasso's favorite alter ego is harlequin, a mysterious character who has long been associated with the god Mercury and Alchemy.
Harlequin's abilities to become invisible and travel to any part of the world at will and take on other forms, were said to have been magically bestowed on him by the god Mercury. It is also said that the secrets of Alchemy, were hidden in the Harlequinade.
Harlequin is also a familiar character in Punch and Judy puppet theatre. In the Barcelona, similar puppet shows had the characters, 'Christoforo' and 'Pulchinelli', who a popular feature of street life at the turn of century.
Picasso probably saw many such performances. He also is known to have assisted in some of Pére Romeu's famous puppet shows at Els Quatre Ghats.
He would probably also have witnessed enactments of harlequin's, "Triumph Over Death" in the annual street carnivals of Barcelona.
Picasso also concealed a number of harlequin forms in his most famous painting Guernica.
These hidden harlequins appear to be magically undermining the forces of death in the painting, and are therefore reminiscent of harlequin's Triumph Over Death.
Wine is one of harlequin's traditional accoutrements which he uses to seduce women.
Occasionally, Picasso's harlequin appears to do the same thing, as can be seen in the painting 'Au Lapin Agile', 1905.
Picasso's harlequin often appears as the father of an infant or yearning for fatherhood, a quality associated with the traditional harlequin, who has the ability to raise breast feed his own children, an alchemical analogy for guidance rendered to the initiate by Mercury.
Picasso symbolically links two of these element and we see harlequin's wine equated with pregnancy as in the 1905 drawing, 'Circus Artist and Child. It shows a mother breast feeding her baby, a wine bottle at her feet is adapted into a baby's feeding bottle. In Picasso's symbolic frame of reference it is not simply a baby's bottle, nor a wine bottle. It is a double symbol for harlequin and Mercury.
In the Three Dancers and the 1934 drawing there is a further, astonishing interlinking of Picasso's wine and pregnancy symbolism.
Frankenstein
In 1931, Universal Studios released the movie 'Frankenstein,' in it the monster, as most of us recognize him today, made his first appearance. The 1934 drawing appears to contain an inverted portrait of Frankenstein's monster derived from this movie.
Picasso, who was himself, often described as a monster, loved cinema and almost certainly saw 'Frankenstein' soon after its release in France. It appears clear from the drawing that Picasso went on to identify a number of symbolic links between himself and the monster and identified further symbolic associations between the monster and Hitler's Aryan Superman.
Frankenstein's monster, like Oedipus and Picasso, were in a sense all responsible for the destruction of their fathers*. All three also suffered a form of blindness; Picasso symbolically, Oedipus by self infliction, and Frankenstein's monster at birth when his eyes are extremely sensitive to light.
All three also underwent a form of crucifixion; Picasso symbolically, Oedipus when he is exposed on the hillside by his father, the monster, both when he is created and when he dies under the sign of a burning cross. Finally, all three characters also experience the pain of exile; Picasso at the turn of the century, and again in the 1930's, in protest against Franco, Oedipus by his own edict, and the monster by his being violently ostracized from society from the day of his creation.
The Hanged Man symbol, with which Picasso closely identified, also features in the Frankenstein movie. In an early scene, parts of a murderer's corpse are stolen from a gallows, to be used in the creation of the monster.
A further association involves the monster's huge fee, which Picasso would have related, in an instant, to the 'Swollen Feet' of his alter ego Oedipus.
The only real human contact the monster makes is with a little girl called Maria who picks some flowers and offers one to the monster. The flower girl is another important psychological symbol, for Picasso, which is present in numerous important works. In the movie, after the monster inadvertently kills the flower girl, she makes a second symbolic appearance, in the guise of Dr Frankenstein's bride, holding her wedding bouquet.
The concealed portrait of the monster in "The Unknown Masterpiece," appears to have its right eye hanging out, a detail that links him symbolically with Odin, who put out one of his eyes and hung inverted from a tree, like Oedipus.
In regard to the concentration of Germanic themes, such as Frankenstein, Wagner and Odin, there is a further level of interpretation which seems to be preoccupied with the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich. In "The Unknown Masterpiece," Picasso, in the time-honored tradition of Daumier, appears to identify the dominant force, Olga, with Nazi Germany, making a deceptive and vicious attack on the helpless victim, Europe, on the left.
* The death of Dr Frankenstein is alluded to but left somewhat ambiguous at the end of the movie, presumably in order to have a happy ending.
Alchemy of the 1934 Drawing
The Symbolists and Surrealists, with whom Picasso's art is intimately linked, sourced many of their ideas from Alchemy and Magic.
"The Unknown Masterpiece" is full of hidden alchemical and magical symbolism. The high level of this occult content indicates that it was produced for a specific magical purpose.
Picasso, like many of the great European artists celebrated today, was deeply involved with the practice of magic and alchemy.
"The Unknown Masterpiece," is full of references to alchemy. The date of its' execution, 1934, is a reference in this vein. Elsewhere in its composition, Picasso incorporated important elements from Durer's alchemical master print, Melencolia, in which the number "34" has an important cryptic significance. In alchemy, the two numerals in the number "34", refer to the two planes of spiritual and worldly existence, which are often symbolized by the triangle and the square. The great work, or goal of alchemy is itself symbolized by these numerals 3 and 4, which, when placed together, can represent the conjoining of heavenly and earthly opposites or consciousness.
A 16th century alchemical engraving
The Gesture of Hermes Trismegistus, "As Above, So Below."
The Downward Pointing Finger
Concealed Yin-Yang symbol in the head and hair of Picasso
DIALOG IDEAS for the blog post:
- What themes or themes would you use identify with in your work? How would your symbols (from your room as identified in Study 2 and 3) give meaning to and work with your theme?
- Why were Picasso, Dürer and many other European artists so interested in alchemy?
ASSIGNMENT for the blog:
Post your thoughts and ideas. Then comment on one other peer's dialog by the due date.
DUE DATE for this assignment: Saturday, Jan. 23 by midnight.