The Embodiment of Artistic Objects in Pablo Picasso’s Cubism

Abstract

According to Michael Tucker, the breakdown of consciousness in modern art, a breakdown that carries the modern artist backwards to an all-embracing participation with the world, leads to a return to archaic qualities of participation mystique that involves constructive, creative elements of a new vision of reality. This may be observed in Pablo Picasso, who wanted with the help of primitive vision to cleanse painting of the stale and paralyzing conventions that he viewed as a sham compared to the profound truth of art. For the Spaniard, painting at its origins was capable of an expressive force so powerful that even the great classic masters were unable to match it, much less strengthen it. The new art he defended was an art of creation, not imitation. It should follow its own generative principles. I examine the three major periods of Cubism (Cézannian, analytic and synthetic) from this perspective as a process of creativity in which Picasso struggled to find the true real and in the process opened up the possibility for new creations including his own persona.