The springtime of youth

The springtime of youth

Have you ever met someone famous when he or she was still young and unknown? That's how I felt coming out of Palazzo Strozzi's latest exhibit, Picasso, Miró, Dalí. Angry Young Men: the Birth of Modernity. With a cinematographic yet scholarly approach, curators Christoph Vitali and

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Thu 24 Mar 2011 1:00 AM

Have you
ever met someone famous when he or she was still young and unknown? That’s how
I felt coming out of Palazzo Strozzi’s latest exhibit, Picasso, Miró, Dalí.
Angry Young Men: the Birth of Modernity. With a cinematographic yet scholarly
approach, curators Christoph Vitali and Eugenio Carmona lead us through the
youthful works of these three Catalan artists who grappled with
nineteenth-century artistic conventions and developed a new form of vision that
was to shape the modern world.

 

 

Although Picasso, Miró and Dalí are often spoken of in the same breath,
the three never exactly ‘hung out’ together, although at different moments in
time they all frequented a tavern in Barcelona called Els Quatre Gats. Picasso
was born in 1881, Miró 12 years later in 1893, and by the time Dalí entered the
world in 1904, Picasso was already a recognized angry young painter in his Blue
Period, living between Spain and France.

 

Given
the difficulty of communicating a movement not coordinated by a unified group
with a manifesto, the curators have decided to use an innovative approach borrowed
from the world of film. The exhibit starts in the year 1926, in Paris, when
Dalí claims that he met Picasso. At this point, all three artists are working
in a mature and recognizable style, evidence of which we see in the first room.
But how did they get there? (At this point, you’d expect see some opening
credits and a fade to black.)

 

Thus
proceeds our exploration back in time through episodes in which two of the
three artists star together, presented as ‘considerations’, moments that the
curator perceived as significant. We see the importance of place for the young
Miró and Dalí in the 19-teens in their Catalonian experiments in portraiture
and landscape-traditional subjects rendered in less-than-traditional styles.
The two artists were influenced by a local movement called Noucentism, which
sought to capture the essence of Catalan spirit. This is best exemplified in
the views of Mont-Roig (Miró) and Cadaqués (Dalí). These landscapes are not
immediately recognizable to us as works of these great modern artists but they
show a struggle to find the ‘right’ style (a balance of classicism and cubism)
that is essential to their artistic development.

 

Back
again we go, this time to 1917, ‘when Miró almost met Picasso’ in Barcelona,
but the younger artist chickened out at an opportunity to meet the great P and
had to content himself with tea and cake (or so I imagine) with Picasso’s
mother. The 24-year-old Miró at this point was mixing his ‘-isms’ but trying to
escape them. He writes, ‘I believe that tomorrow we will have no school ending
in “-ism.”‘ In the search for a style that would ‘let our paintbrush mark our
vibrations,’ he ended up profoundly influenced by Picasso’s explorations of
Cubism while choosing to ignore the more classicizing leanings of the great
master (an aspect that, on the other hand, was to please Dalí very much). The
paintings by Miró in this section do indeed pulsate with strange fauvist
colours and cubist forms.

 

Finally,
at the end-or really the beginning-we meet the young Picasso in a sketchbook
from 1907, never before shown in its entirety, and see his youthful style
expressed in oils from the first years of the twentieth century. The deeply
melancholic poster image for the exhibition, 20-year-old Picasso’s Two
Acrobats (1901), explores styles, forms and
colours never seen before. ‘Feeling blue’ has nothing on Picasso, who used this
chromatic limitation in a period of depression that represents a struggle for
emerging creativity and innovation.

 

The
‘Angry Young Men’ of the title of this exhibit are not really angry, they are
struggling, or if you prefer a less Marxist term, they are rebelling. Like any
rebellion, it is complex and comprises a series of often difficult to
comprehend steps. Palazzo Strozzi’s exhibits never fail to offer the visitor an
opportunity to understand art on various levels, and in this case, beyond the
visual joy of meeting these young artists, I still feel like I am missing
something. However, thanks to this exhibition, its very scholarly catalogue and
a tour with the curator himself, I have filled in a blank in my art history
education and have plenty of food for thought.

 

Picasso,
Miró, Dalí declares this the springtime of youth: alongside the show, which
runs through July 17, 2011, there is a wealth of programming that continues
Palazzo Strozzi’s dedication to families and to the city while also
specifically addressing young adults. Thursday Squared offers free concerts and
activities in the courtyard until 11pm and free entrance to Emerging Talents in
the Strozzina downstairs, while at other times there are drawing lessons,
creative writing workshops, guided tours by local high school students and
more. The exhibit’s tentacles reach out into the city with free Tuesday night
films at the Odeon on the theme of identity (April 19 to June 21) and
reciprocal deals with the city’s theatres and concert halls.

 

 

PICASSO
IN FLORENCE?

 

We must
admit that these Spanish artists do not have a link to the city of Florence as
does, say, Bronzino. So what are they doing at Palazzo Strozzi? During research
for the show, the curators discovered that Picasso visited Florence on two
separate occasions in 1917 and 1949. In 1917, he stayed in Italy for about two
months, during which time he visited Rome, Naples, Pompei and Florence. He met
Florentine futurist artists Alberto Magnelli and Primo Conti, and together they
visited the city’s museums, churches and palaces. Apparently, Picasso really
appreciated Michelangelo’s Night and Day. On a short return visit in November 1949,
however, Picasso was ‘bored with museums,’ according to journalist and art
critic Antonello Trombadori, although at the Mercato Nuovo Picasso did ‘put his
hand under the water splashing out of the bronze boar’s mouth, just like a
kid.’

 

 

Palazzo Strozzi & The Florentine are hosting Florence Slow Art Day 2011 on Saturday April 16 2011 – an occasion to look at art (slowly) and then talk about it (casually and over food!). Read about this experience and how to sign up here: http://slowartflorence2011.eventbrite.com/

 

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