Pablo Picasso, Sultanbank sitting with arms crossed (in 1923)
1)
Pablo Picasso:
At the age of 14, his family moved to Barcelona.
From this time onwards, he already showed an unusual talent for painting. He first went to Paris in 1900.
After the 'Blue Period' and the 'Circus Period', in 2007, while working on The Daughters of Avignon, he came into contact with Cézanne's work and his theories on painting and began exploring cubism with Braque.
2)
He painted realistic portraits during the First World War, and the 'neo-classical period' began in 1920 with the monumental classical nudes.
From around 1925, he was influenced by Surrealism, but he did not fit in with the Surrealist view of painting, which realistically reproduced material from dreams and the unconscious world.
3)
The Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936.
The following year, in 1937, he produced Guernica in protest against Franco and fascist violence in Spain.
He remained in Paris during the Second World War, settled in Antibes and Vallauris in southern France after the war, and then moved to Cannes.
Until his death, he always showed new developments and maintained his position as a representative of 20th-century art.
4)
Picasso was strongly inspired by the art and culture of classical antiquity during his visit to Italy during the First World War.
As a result, in 1918, he entered the neoclassical period, when the subjects depicted had the grandeur of ancient sculpture.
This work was produced towards the end of this period and is, so to speak, the culmination of his work.
The artist depicted here is a street performer known as the Sultan Bank.
5)
The term is derived from the Italian 'tartare in banc' (who jumps on a chair) and has long been used in France. They used to walk around fairs and other places to show their improvised tricks.
The solid black lines, the refined yet powerful colour contrasts, the mastery of the stable composition and the clear expression of the sultan's bank has a plastic beauty reminiscent of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.
6)
Here, Picasso does not appear to be painting with pity for the comedian.
Instead, the performer looks exciting, like a hero leading the way in a new era.
There seems to be an overlay of the artist's intention to overcome traditional beauty with a new technique resulting from his own trial-and-error refinement.
7)
This work was once in the collection of Vladimir Horowitz, a leading 20th-century pianist and art collector known to have decorated the living room of his home.
Pablo Picasso, Sultanbank sitting with arms crossed (in 1923)
https://www.artizon.museum/collection/highlight/19417%7C66
