CUBIST SHAKESPEARE

[Eric Roberts]

 

The first is by Pablo Lobato. The rest are by Picasso from his "Shakespeare Series" in the late 1960s.

 

This is about as far as any artist can push the stereotype "portrait" of William Shakespeare - just this side of complete abstraction. Yet, we can still 'recognise' the subject, so deeply have we all been brain-washed by Popular Fiction.

[RoyalCraftiness]

On 12/11/2022 at 4:00 AM, Eric Roberts said:

 

The first is by Pablo Lobato. The rest are by Picasso from his "Shakespeare Series" in the late 1960s.

 

This is about as far as any artist can push the stereotype "portrait" of William Shakespeare - just this side of complete abstraction. Yet, we can still 'recognise' the subject, so deeply have we all been brain-washed by Popular Fiction.

The first one doesn't seem to give up much does it? It looks just about as cartoonish as the image we are given. That may suggest the image we are given is also based in a geometric portrayal. 

[Light-of-Truth]

On 5/7/2023 at 9:43 AM, RoyalCraftiness said:

That may suggest the image we are given is also based in a geometric portrayal. 

I'd say so. 🙂

 

[RoyalCraftiness]

On 5/10/2023 at 6:52 PM, Light-of-Truth said:

I'd say so. 🙂

 

...a simpler one where more has gone into compositional considerations than creating a likeness. To be fair that is not unlike one learns how to draw figures in some ways of training one's self to draw.  Still, it is rather suggestive of the fact that someone may have wanted Shakespeare to be a poster child for the geometric grand architect of the Universe (a face of God). If this was not someone's routine way of going about this sort of thing then we are free to wonder why one would do that or why the decision to include this sort of portrayal was made. By many accounts much better could have been produced, and we have seen much better portrayals in works of this period. This appears to have been preferred.