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بيكاسو: نجاحه وإخفاقه
عندما صدر هذا الكتاب عام 1965، كان "بابلو بيكاسو" قد بلغ شهرة واسعة، مكللاً بهالات إعجاب المعجبين والمريدين والنقاد، من أوساط فنية وأيديولوجية مختلفة.
لقد وضع هذا الكتاب الناقدُ البريطاني اليساري "جون بيرجر"، عارضاً فيه رؤيةً نقدية متماسكة وشاملة لـ"بيكاسو" ولفنه، إنطلاقاً من تكوين الفنان، ومن العوامل التي أثرت في نشاطه الإبداعي، والسياق التاريخي الذي حدد مساره، لمدةٍ تزيد على نصف قرن.
أثار الكتاب، منذ صدوره، ولا يزال، جدلاً واسعاً في الأوساط الفنية، لا لجرأته في التصدي لكثير من المفاهيم والمعايير التي ارتكز عليها النقاد في تناولهم لفن "بيكاسو" فحسب، بل لمقولته الرئيسية بأن "بيكاسو" الفنان إنما انتهى، كقضية، وثورة، ومعلم، مع إنتهاء الحرب العالمية الثانية.
وهي مقولة لم يتخلَّ عنها "بيرجر" في المقالات والدراسات التي وضعها عن "بيكاسو" في ما بعد، ولا في طبعات الكتاب اللاحقة التي صدرت في أعقاب وفاة الفنان، بعد أن أضاف إليها فصولاً عام 1989، ولا في المقدمة التي خصّ بها القارىء العربي في هذه الترجمة التي تصدرها المنظمة.
لقد وضع هذا الكتاب الناقدُ البريطاني اليساري "جون بيرجر"، عارضاً فيه رؤيةً نقدية متماسكة وشاملة لـ"بيكاسو" ولفنه، إنطلاقاً من تكوين الفنان، ومن العوامل التي أثرت في نشاطه الإبداعي، والسياق التاريخي الذي حدد مساره، لمدةٍ تزيد على نصف قرن.
أثار الكتاب، منذ صدوره، ولا يزال، جدلاً واسعاً في الأوساط الفنية، لا لجرأته في التصدي لكثير من المفاهيم والمعايير التي ارتكز عليها النقاد في تناولهم لفن "بيكاسو" فحسب، بل لمقولته الرئيسية بأن "بيكاسو" الفنان إنما انتهى، كقضية، وثورة، ومعلم، مع إنتهاء الحرب العالمية الثانية.
وهي مقولة لم يتخلَّ عنها "بيرجر" في المقالات والدراسات التي وضعها عن "بيكاسو" في ما بعد، ولا في طبعات الكتاب اللاحقة التي صدرت في أعقاب وفاة الفنان، بعد أن أضاف إليها فصولاً عام 1989، ولا في المقدمة التي خصّ بها القارىء العربي في هذه الترجمة التي تصدرها المنظمة.
333 pages
First published January 1, 1965
84 people are currently reading
1,563 people want to read
About the author
John Berger
261books2,393followersJohn Peter Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a college text.
Later he was self exiled to continental Europe, living between the french Alps in summer and the suburbs of Paris in winter. Since then, his production has increased considerably, including a variety of genres, from novel to social essay, or poetry. One of the most common themes that appears on his books is the dialectics established between modernity and memory and loss,
Another of his most remarkable works has been the trilogy titled Into Their Labours, that includes the books Pig Earth (1979), Once In Europa (1983) Lilac And Flag (1990). With those books, Berger makes a meditation about the way of the peasant, that changes one poverty for another in the city. This theme is also observed in his novel King, but there his focus is more in the rural diaspora and the bitter side of the urban way of life.
Later he was self exiled to continental Europe, living between the french Alps in summer and the suburbs of Paris in winter. Since then, his production has increased considerably, including a variety of genres, from novel to social essay, or poetry. One of the most common themes that appears on his books is the dialectics established between modernity and memory and loss,
Another of his most remarkable works has been the trilogy titled Into Their Labours, that includes the books Pig Earth (1979), Once In Europa (1983) Lilac And Flag (1990). With those books, Berger makes a meditation about the way of the peasant, that changes one poverty for another in the city. This theme is also observed in his novel King, but there his focus is more in the rural diaspora and the bitter side of the urban way of life.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
May 13, 2017
Picasso was still alive when Berger wrote this book. He had already been a legend for decades, and his works were selling for amounts that seemed to Berger obscene, to us now, quaint. Berger doesn't use the term "celebrity" but he might as well. Picasso has an entourage of acolytes and flatterers. Already right after WWII he was able to buy a chateau with the proceeds from one still-life.
Critically, Picasso was a child prodigy. When he was 14, Picasso's father, an art teacher, gave him his palette and brushes and vowed never to paint again because the boy had surpassed him already. Berger notes:
"Child prodigies in the visual arts are much rarer than in music and, in a certain sense, less true. The boy Mozart probably did play as finely as anybody else alive. Picasso at sixteen was not drawing as well as Degas. The difference is perhaps due to the fact that music is more self-contained than painting. The ear can develop independently: the eye can only develop as fast as one's understanding of the objects seen.....[the prodigy] does things without understanding why or the reasoning behind them. He obeys what is the equivalent of an instinctual desire."
In Berger's view the most important period of Picasso's life, when he had the most artistic successes, was his Cubist period. In this period, Picasso developed as an artist, something Berger says did not happen at any other time of his life. (I thought of Mendelssohn when I read this. He too was a child prodigy, yet he was a composer who more or less stopped developing at a fairly young age. Contrast him to Beethoven or someone similar to Beethoven, who had early, middle and late periods, with increasing complexity of composition, and increasing development as an artist.) Berger distinguishes Picasso from Juan Gris, an artist who "believes in the intellect" (Picasso doesn't); Gris's paintings develop, "Picasso's paintings, however much they may appear to change, remain essentially what they were at their beginning."
Apart from the Cubist years, Picasso failed to develop because "he has not been open to explanations, suggestions, or arguments. Instead he has had to rely more and more exclusively upon the mystery of his own prodigious creativity.....Picasso's being a child prodigy has increased and prolonged the effect and influence of his early years. The power of his genius, in which he had to trust, became a barrier against outside influences, and even a barrier against any conscious plans of his own. He submitted to its will - in an eternal present. He stayed young."
For Berger Cubism, which took place from 1907 to 1914, was hugely important - as revolutionary in seeing things in a new way as the Renaissance. "Such a sense of newness has nothing to do with the artist's own originality. It has to do with the time in which he lives. More specifically it has to do with the possibilities suggested, with an awareness of promise - in art, life, science, philosophy, technology. ....it was far more than a stylistic revolt against what had preceded it. Cubism changed the nature of the relationships between the painted image and reality, and by doing this it placed man in a position which he had never been in before." Berger spends some time examining how Courbet and Cezanne in the 19th century were paving the way for Cubism.
So Picasso is advancing, developing, his art and his artistic vision with Cubism - and the source of his advancement has nothing to do "with the artist's own originality." For once he is relying not on his own genius but on aspects of the world outside himself. He provokes Cubism with the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, says Berger, and Cubism is sustained by the other artists Braque, Derain, Léger, and the poet Apollinaire. With the onset of World War I, the group is broken up. "It was they, rather than [Picasso]," writes Berger, "who belonged to the modern world, and so were committed to it." Picasso goes back to relying on his innate genius. In this period he is painting caricatures of other artists and other styles, and pastiches which "are not as satisfying or profound as the originals, because there is a self-conscious division between their form and content. The way in which they are painted or drawn does not arise directly out of what Picasso has to say about his subject, but instead out of what Picasso has to say about art history."
Berger argues that Picasso's rootedness in the 19th century, and his "exile" from Spain, make him self-sufficient and isolate him. There is an existential loneliness whose effect on his art is that "he does not know what to paint...he will run out of subjects. He will not run out of emotion or feelings or sensations; but he will run out of subjects to contain them."
Berger's argument is more detailed and sophisticated than I can go into here but its basis is that an artist needs contact with the outside world and resistance from the outside world in order to find subjects and other realities that exist outside his own awareness and his own creativity. Picasso's art became mannered because he lacked subjects outside himself, his own style, and his own art. When he imitates Velazquez' great painting Las Meninas, he "empties it of its own content, and then is unable to find any of his own."
February 26, 2018
Bu kitap yardımıyla Picasso hakkında sahip olmak istediğinizden de fazlasını öğrenebilirsiniz. Altın vuruş son cümlede saklıymış meğer: "Daha önce kimse boyayla küfretmemişti."
December 7, 2007
Classic comment that I remember from this book was where Berger pointed out that after a certain point in Picasso's life, if he wanted anything all he had to do was draw it.
October 3, 2021
“Kübizm� ve “kübistler� tüm gayretlerime rağmen anlayamadığım bir akım ve sanatçı topluluğunu ifade ediyor benim için. Bu kitabı Picasso özelinde kübizmi anlayabilmek için okudum. Anladım mı ? Hayır. Peki bu kitapta ne buldum ! Ortaçağ öncesinden başlayıp, ekenomik ve siyasi tarihini, engizisyondan İç Savaş’a, feodaliteden anarşizme mükemmel bir İspanya ve İspanyolların genel bir analizini buldum. Berger bu değerlendirmeyi Picasso açısından içinde büyüdüğü ülkenin (İspanya) ve toplumun (İspanyollar) yapısından çok derin bir biçimde etkilenmiş olması nedeniyle yaptığını, toplumun birkaç temel gerçeğine ilişkin ipuçları vermeye çalıştığını belirtiyor.
Berger şöyle bir değerlendirmede bulunuyor; “Kübistler, görüngülerin içiçe geçişini görsel olarak açığa çıkarabilecekleri bir sistem yaratmışlardı. Böylelikle de sanatta, durağan varolma durumları yerine, süreçleri açığa çıkarma imkânını yaratmışlardı. Kübizm, tümüyle etkileşimle ilgilenen bir sanattır: Değişik yönler arasındaki etkileşim; yapı ve hareket arasındaki etkileşim; katı cisimlerle onları çevreleyen uzam arasındaki etkileşim; bir resmin yüzeyine yapılan belirsiz olmayan işaretlerle, onların temsil ettikleri değişken gerçeklik arasındaki etkileşim. Kübistler şaşırtıcı bir çakışma noktasındaydılar. On dokuzuncu yüzyıl sanatından, diyalektik materyalizmin devrimci umudunu devraldılar.� Şimdi, bu değerlendirmeyi kübizmle ilintileyemediğimi (maalesef) belirtmeliyim. Zaten tüm kitap kübizmi anlamlandırma ve değer yükleme gayretleriyle dolu, ki çoğunu kafamda bir yere oturtamadım.
Bir burjuva devrimcisi olarak tanımladığı Picasso’yu irdelediği bölümleri çok daha anlaşılır ve bilgilendirici buldum, özellikle politikayla ilgisinin sadece ülkesindeki iç savaş ile ilgili olduğu saptama ilginç. Buna karşın ünlü Guernica için yazdıkları şunlardır J. Berger’in; “Guernica çok derinden öznellik taşıyan bir yapıttır, gücü de buradan kaynaklanır zaten. Picasso, gerçek olayı imgelerde canlandırmaya çalışmamıştır. Kent yoktur, uçaklar yoktur, patlama yoktur; günün, yılın, yüzyılın belli bir zamanına ya da İspanya'da olayın geçtiği kesime hiçbir gönderme yoktur. Suçlanacak düşman yoktur. Kahramanlık da yoktur. Gene de yapıt bir protestodur, resmin tarihini bilmese bile anlar insan bunu. Öyleyse protesto nereden kaynaklanmaktadır? Bedenlerde ellere, ayak tabanlarına, atın diline, annenin memelerine, başlardaki gözlere olanlardadır protesto. Resmediliş yoluyla bunlara olanlar, bedende duyulanların, olup bitenlerin duyuluş biçiminin imgelemdeki eşdeğerleridir. Onların acıları gözlerimiz yoluyla hissettirilir bize. Acı da bedenin protestosudur. Picasso, nasıl cinselliği toplumdan soyutlayıp doğaya iade ediyorsa, burada da acıyı ve korkuyu tarihten soyutlayıp protesto içindeki bir doğaya iade eder�.
Sonuçta kübizmi anlamamış olma halim devam ediyor, ancak kitabı ilginç olması nedeniyle öneririm.
Berger şöyle bir değerlendirmede bulunuyor; “Kübistler, görüngülerin içiçe geçişini görsel olarak açığa çıkarabilecekleri bir sistem yaratmışlardı. Böylelikle de sanatta, durağan varolma durumları yerine, süreçleri açığa çıkarma imkânını yaratmışlardı. Kübizm, tümüyle etkileşimle ilgilenen bir sanattır: Değişik yönler arasındaki etkileşim; yapı ve hareket arasındaki etkileşim; katı cisimlerle onları çevreleyen uzam arasındaki etkileşim; bir resmin yüzeyine yapılan belirsiz olmayan işaretlerle, onların temsil ettikleri değişken gerçeklik arasındaki etkileşim. Kübistler şaşırtıcı bir çakışma noktasındaydılar. On dokuzuncu yüzyıl sanatından, diyalektik materyalizmin devrimci umudunu devraldılar.� Şimdi, bu değerlendirmeyi kübizmle ilintileyemediğimi (maalesef) belirtmeliyim. Zaten tüm kitap kübizmi anlamlandırma ve değer yükleme gayretleriyle dolu, ki çoğunu kafamda bir yere oturtamadım.
Bir burjuva devrimcisi olarak tanımladığı Picasso’yu irdelediği bölümleri çok daha anlaşılır ve bilgilendirici buldum, özellikle politikayla ilgisinin sadece ülkesindeki iç savaş ile ilgili olduğu saptama ilginç. Buna karşın ünlü Guernica için yazdıkları şunlardır J. Berger’in; “Guernica çok derinden öznellik taşıyan bir yapıttır, gücü de buradan kaynaklanır zaten. Picasso, gerçek olayı imgelerde canlandırmaya çalışmamıştır. Kent yoktur, uçaklar yoktur, patlama yoktur; günün, yılın, yüzyılın belli bir zamanına ya da İspanya'da olayın geçtiği kesime hiçbir gönderme yoktur. Suçlanacak düşman yoktur. Kahramanlık da yoktur. Gene de yapıt bir protestodur, resmin tarihini bilmese bile anlar insan bunu. Öyleyse protesto nereden kaynaklanmaktadır? Bedenlerde ellere, ayak tabanlarına, atın diline, annenin memelerine, başlardaki gözlere olanlardadır protesto. Resmediliş yoluyla bunlara olanlar, bedende duyulanların, olup bitenlerin duyuluş biçiminin imgelemdeki eşdeğerleridir. Onların acıları gözlerimiz yoluyla hissettirilir bize. Acı da bedenin protestosudur. Picasso, nasıl cinselliği toplumdan soyutlayıp doğaya iade ediyorsa, burada da acıyı ve korkuyu tarihten soyutlayıp protesto içindeki bir doğaya iade eder�.
Sonuçta kübizmi anlamamış olma halim devam ediyor, ancak kitabı ilginç olması nedeniyle öneririm.
October 16, 2019
"ancak, kendi içinde picasso aynı anda hem bir "soylu vahşi" hem de burjuva "devrimcisi"ydi. yine kendi içinde, onun ikinci yanı birinci yanını idealize etmiştir."
March 17, 2013
One of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've had in a while. Berger's erudition and analytic acumen are sharp and wide-ranging, but the book is presented more as the notes of a learned man than a rigorous academic work. And this is good, because Berger manages to give us an entirely new appreciation of a familiar forest by presenting us with a provocative account of several of its most significant trees. That is to say, the book is not comprehensive; it is guided by its argument, not by an attempt to demonstrate mastery and effort. And that is its great virtue.
Provocative is a good word to describe much of it. I don't here refer to what was apparently controversial about the book upon its publication (the focus on Picasso's wealth, and the refusal to countenance hagiography). I'm referring to the way in which Berger announces a hypothesis, and runs with it as if it were true. The riskiness of his inquiry is presented to the reader without any attempt to hide it. So while his demonstrated understanding of Marxism seems at times a bit dim, and his generalizations about Spain seem questionable if not potentially offensive, Berger admirably constructs a series of conclusions from the edifice of symbols he conjured into being, and the total effect is a fully-formed vision of one way of viewing Picasso's achievements, and how they relate to contemporaneous historical events.
I have great sympathy for Berger's insistence on visual art objects as documents embedded in, emergent from, and eventually constitutive of social relations. Berger never abandons the view that art has the potential of conjuring into discursive reality, if not social reality, utopia; he admires painters who can either embody the contradictions of the present or who paint truth for a "future society," but doesn't hesitate to disparage works that merely wallow in and do not challenge the present. Berger has exceeded the mundane conventions of both biography and the let's-appreciate-art genre of criticism, and instead has created a work of art criticism that is simultaneously an important account the particular challenges, pressures, and opportunities (seized or lost) of the 20th century.
Provocative is a good word to describe much of it. I don't here refer to what was apparently controversial about the book upon its publication (the focus on Picasso's wealth, and the refusal to countenance hagiography). I'm referring to the way in which Berger announces a hypothesis, and runs with it as if it were true. The riskiness of his inquiry is presented to the reader without any attempt to hide it. So while his demonstrated understanding of Marxism seems at times a bit dim, and his generalizations about Spain seem questionable if not potentially offensive, Berger admirably constructs a series of conclusions from the edifice of symbols he conjured into being, and the total effect is a fully-formed vision of one way of viewing Picasso's achievements, and how they relate to contemporaneous historical events.
I have great sympathy for Berger's insistence on visual art objects as documents embedded in, emergent from, and eventually constitutive of social relations. Berger never abandons the view that art has the potential of conjuring into discursive reality, if not social reality, utopia; he admires painters who can either embody the contradictions of the present or who paint truth for a "future society," but doesn't hesitate to disparage works that merely wallow in and do not challenge the present. Berger has exceeded the mundane conventions of both biography and the let's-appreciate-art genre of criticism, and instead has created a work of art criticism that is simultaneously an important account the particular challenges, pressures, and opportunities (seized or lost) of the 20th century.
June 27, 2021
John Berger bu kitabında Picasso'yu bir sanatçı olarak değil de sanki bir sanat eseri olarak görmüş. Önce onun portresini ortaya çıkarmış, ardından bir sanat eleştirmeni olarak bu tabloyu detaylı bir şekilde incelemiş. Her ne kadar bir ressamı resme dönüştürüp ortaya çıkan sonucu eleştirmek oldukça kolay ve çelişkiye açık kapı bırakır gibi görünse de John Berger'in sanatçı yönü bu endişeleri ilk sayfalarda gideriyor, tüm çıkarımların hatalı olma ihtimalinin bilincinde dahi eser, estetik ve kurgusal açıdan okuru etkisi altına alıyor.
Kitapta asıl dikkatimi çeken yön ise yazarın, bir portre olarak Picasso'yu bize anlatırken takındığı -belki de bilinçsiz olarak- kübist yaklaşımı. Berger, kübistlerin resimde yaptıklarını metne taşıyarak klasik bir hayat öyküsü anlatısının sınırlarını aşmış, Picasso'nun hayatını okura sunmak yerine ressamın zihin dünyasını yaratan tüm ilişkiler ağını bütünsel olarak açıklamaya girişmiş. Bilindik dahi sanatçı Picasso figürünü ise parçalara bölüp yeniden birleştirmiş; tepeden inme istilacı karakteriyle potansiyelini heba eden bir çağın mağdurunu okurun karşısına çıkarmış. Ancak kişisel görüşüm; bu ikinci Picasso'nun -Berger'in Picasso'su-; oldukça birincisine benzediği ve belki de daha insani ve kusurlu olması nedeniyle ondan ve diğerlerinden -diğer Picasso yorumlarından, büyük ihtimalle Picasso'nun Picasso'sundan bile- daha dikkat çekici olduğu.
Kitapta asıl dikkatimi çeken yön ise yazarın, bir portre olarak Picasso'yu bize anlatırken takındığı -belki de bilinçsiz olarak- kübist yaklaşımı. Berger, kübistlerin resimde yaptıklarını metne taşıyarak klasik bir hayat öyküsü anlatısının sınırlarını aşmış, Picasso'nun hayatını okura sunmak yerine ressamın zihin dünyasını yaratan tüm ilişkiler ağını bütünsel olarak açıklamaya girişmiş. Bilindik dahi sanatçı Picasso figürünü ise parçalara bölüp yeniden birleştirmiş; tepeden inme istilacı karakteriyle potansiyelini heba eden bir çağın mağdurunu okurun karşısına çıkarmış. Ancak kişisel görüşüm; bu ikinci Picasso'nun -Berger'in Picasso'su-; oldukça birincisine benzediği ve belki de daha insani ve kusurlu olması nedeniyle ondan ve diğerlerinden -diğer Picasso yorumlarından, büyük ihtimalle Picasso'nun Picasso'sundan bile- daha dikkat çekici olduğu.
April 23, 2021
This being a John Berger book, the author takes his usual fresh and original approach. Forget the usual biography of documenting their life history as the basis of the book. Here we look at some possible reasons for the way Picasso became who he did by looking at politics, history and many other angles that keep this book engaging.
Berger is undoubtedly a great art critic as can be seen in his art books, journalistic work and TV programmes. I'm mainly a fan of this book because Berger obviously rates Picasso as one of the great geniuses, but he refuses to put him on a pedestal and is willing to approach some taboo subjects. These being Picasso's huge financial fortune and that maybe he lost his way a little in his later years. Its a balanced view of the painter and examines him from many angles, all of which are normally ignored. Kudos to John Berger.
Berger is undoubtedly a great art critic as can be seen in his art books, journalistic work and TV programmes. I'm mainly a fan of this book because Berger obviously rates Picasso as one of the great geniuses, but he refuses to put him on a pedestal and is willing to approach some taboo subjects. These being Picasso's huge financial fortune and that maybe he lost his way a little in his later years. Its a balanced view of the painter and examines him from many angles, all of which are normally ignored. Kudos to John Berger.
January 6, 2018
خواندن راجع به هنرمند پرحاشیه ای مثل پیکاسو(که حاشیه هايش انبوهی از کژفهمی به همراه داشته اند) از قلم شخصیت نكته سنجي مثل جان برجر تجربه ای تکرار نشدنیه . . . البته در كنار اين نكات و نگرش هاي بديع بايد اين نكته رو هم در نظر داشت كه تفسيرهاي برجر در غالب موارد به طرز اغراق آميزي بر آمده از پيش فرضهاي ماركسيستي اونه كه ميتونه به تحليلهايي تقليل گرايانه منتهي بشه،
"پیکاسو مثالی است برای شکست یک روحیه انقلابی. وجود پیکاسو به مثابه یک مثال، تنها در رابطه با هنرمندان نیست زیرا او، هنرمندی است که تجربه اش را به سادگی میتوانیم مشاهده کنیم. تجربه اش ثابت میکند که کامیابی و سربلندی ای را که جامعه بورژوازی هدیه میدهد، دیگر کسی را نباید وسوسه کند. نپذیرفتن چنین کامیابی و سربلندی ای نه بر پایه اصول، بلکه به خاطر حفظ خویشتن است
"پیکاسو مثالی است برای شکست یک روحیه انقلابی. وجود پیکاسو به مثابه یک مثال، تنها در رابطه با هنرمندان نیست زیرا او، هنرمندی است که تجربه اش را به سادگی میتوانیم مشاهده کنیم. تجربه اش ثابت میکند که کامیابی و سربلندی ای را که جامعه بورژوازی هدیه میدهد، دیگر کسی را نباید وسوسه کند. نپذیرفتن چنین کامیابی و سربلندی ای نه بر پایه اصول، بلکه به خاطر حفظ خویشتن است
October 7, 2016
اسلوب الكتاب سلس و مشوق رافقه سرد تاريخي للحقبة التي عايشها بيكاسو بطريقة غير مملة ، قبل البدئ بأي موضوع يعطي خلفية تاريخية قصيرة مما يجعل القارئ ملماً بكل تفاصيل حياة بيكاسو ( بداياته ، معاناته ، أسرته ، أصدقاءه ، غربته ) و كأنه كان يعيش معه و هذا ما أعجبني بالكتاب .
أعجبتني كثيرا ترجمةً و شكلاً النسخة التي امتلكها للمنظمة العربية للترجمة و هي أول كتاب أقرأه للمنظمة .
أعجبتني كثيرا ترجمةً و شكلاً النسخة التي امتلكها للمنظمة العربية للترجمة و هي أول كتاب أقرأه للمنظمة .
August 7, 2019
I learned a lot about Picasso's way of painting from this book. The discussion of cubism is worth the whole thing, but the book has more to offer beyond that.
September 12, 2020
Medium üzerinden yayınlayacağım demiştim.
Okumak isterseniz ;
Okumak isterseniz ;
July 17, 2022
“Picasso is the King. Everything and everybody revolves around him. His whim is law. No word of criticism is ever heard. There is a great deal of talk but very little serious discussion. Picasso behaves and is treated like a child who has to be protected. It is perfectly ordinary to like one picture better than other. But it is inconceivable that anybody should suggest that any painting is a total failure. There is no sense whatsoever of a struggle towards an aim: only a sense of Picasso struggling blindly within himself, and everybody else struggling to keep him amused and happy. […] Picasso is only happy when working. Yet he has nothing of his own to work on. He takes up the themes of others painters� pictures: Delacroix’s FEMMES D’ALGER, Velasquez’s LAS MENINAS, Manet’s DEJEUNER SUR L’HERBE. He decorates pots and plates that other men make for him. He is reduced to playing like a child. He has once again become the child prodigy. The world has failed to liberate him from that state because it has failed to encourage him to develop.�
August 19, 2022
It's very refreshing to read an extended critical study of a painter that opens with a detailed accounting of his current probable wealth, the sale prices of his paintings, the economic world into which he was born and to whose transformation he was essential. Genuinely flicking through other monographs and life studies of Picasso you see so much of the bland hero worship Berger skewers here. It makes his praise so much more meaningful: Picasso is not the infinite genius who can paint anything, but, rather, a master of the body's sensations, particularly the possessive but confessing and unashamed love of the body of the woman, and, for a shining period during Cubism's ascendance, a word-historical transformer of the relationship between the viewer and reality, along with Braque and Gris and Leger and so on, with whom he was, tragically briefly, able to grow as an artist through the labour and effort of community-building. After this period Picasso is increasingly severed from the reality principle, is basically Berger's point, severed from any challenge by another person, and he has no 'subject' besides himself, making his late works unmotivated, a renewed juvenilia. It's a convincing and melancholic story, much more interesting and revelatory than the usual adventure of the great man.
January 24, 2017
"Picasso, yirminci yüzyılın ortasına özgü tipik sanatçıdır, çünkü onun öyküsü 'par excellence' başarı öyküsüdür. Başka sanatçılar başarıya kur yapmış, kökenlerine ihanet ederek kendilerini topluma uyarlamışlardır. Picasso, bunların hiçbirini yapmamıştır. Onun başarıyı davet edişi, Van Gogh'un başarısızlığı davet edişi ölçüsünde az olmuştur (Picasso da, Van Gogh da yazgılarına karşı bir tutum edinmediler; ama onların "davetleri"nin sınırı buydu). Başarı, Picasso'nun kaderi oldu; işte onu zamanımızın tipik sanatçısı yapan budur; tıpkı Van Gogh'un kendi zamanının tipik sanatçısı olması gibi."
January 25, 2021
Picasso’nun resimleri üzerinden; hem dönemine, hem ressamın içine bir bakış, bilmediğim çok şey öğrendim... Düşük puan verme sebebim ise dönemsel çok detaylarda boğulması....Berger’in kitaplarında bir diğer sıkıntı da; içerdiği görsel/resimlerin siyah beyaz basılması - Kitabın orjinali de mi böyle, bilmiyorum...Yazar kitaplarında kimi zaman resimde bir renk/renkleri ressamın ruh hali, durum üzerinden yorumluyor; resme internetten tekrar bakmak bütünlüğü bozuyor.
June 19, 2016
كتاب جميل .. الأسلوب الذي أفضله في عرض حياة وأعمال أحدهم، فقد تطرق إلى أعماله الفنية، والفترات المؤثرة من حياته عليه كفنان، بل ووصف الحقبة التاريخية التي أثرت على أفكار وأعمال بيكاسو. جميل جدًا، وأنصح به للمهتمين بأعمال بيكاسو، فنان العصر الحالي الأكثر بروزًا.
October 25, 2024
Picasso’nun yaşamını ve sanatındaki gelişimi ve değişimi var. Berger, onun eserlerine derinlemesine bakarak, başarılarını ve sanatsal dönüşümünü analiz eder; hatta bu başarıların bazı durumlarda bir tür başarısızlık olarak görülebileceğine dair eleştirel bir yorum yapmis. Ayrıca Picasso'yu geleneksel bir sanat eleştirisinden ziyade toplumsal ve tarihsel bir çerçevede inceliyor. Bu eser, sanatın estetik değerlerinin yanında, sanatçının bulunduğu toplumsal koşulları da dikkate alan önemli bir eleştiri olarak modern sanatı da incelemiş.
January 8, 2025
Muy buen libro. Escrito con nervio y tesón, te atrapa de principio a final siendo un ensayo estético sobre la relación entre el espíritu del genio de Picasso y su producción. Un enfoque valiente, que abandona lugares comunes y se atreve a decir que algunos cuadros de Picasso no fueron buenos.
Picasso como un invasor de la Europa moderna con la que nunca estuvo alineado, y que pudo explicar mejor que nadie mediante contraposición y comparación, proponiendo un objeto de su arte que era su subjetividad no-europea sufriendo en esa Europa que no lo reconocía.
Picasso como un invasor de la Europa moderna con la que nunca estuvo alineado, y que pudo explicar mejor que nadie mediante contraposición y comparación, proponiendo un objeto de su arte que era su subjetividad no-europea sufriendo en esa Europa que no lo reconocía.
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December 30, 2019"Palavaa Malagaa katsovan vanhan anarkistin huudahduksessa on myös taloudellista logiikkaa" & 19 muuta suosikkia
September 24, 2020
Incredible book. John Berger's brain makes my brain go 🤯🤯
February 6, 2025
“Success has been Piccasso’s destiny and that is what makes him the typical artist of our time�
October 16, 2019
Success and Failure of Picasso
by John Berger
John Berger is perhaps best know for his trilogy ‘Into Their Labours� and the novel ‘G� but he was also a famous art critic and writer of the internationally acclaimed ‘Ways of Seeing�. In ‘Success and Failure of Picasso� he gives his original vision of the ‘vertical invader� Picasso.
John Berger describes Picasso as a “vertical invader� from Spain into France: “always he has subjected what he has seen around him to a comparison with what he brought with him from his own country, from the past.� Berger borrows the idea of the “vertical invader� from José Ortega y Gasset, who in turn borrowed it from Walther Rathenau. For Rathenau and Ortega, the invaders are the peasants and workers who have traditionally been excluded from civil society but now demand political and cultural representation. For Berger, Picasso’s Spanish roots make him an artistic outsider in France, his work impelled by a sense of difference and exclusion.
Picasso’s “invader� status also relates his work to the postcolonial critique of modernism. Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropófago� of 1928 describes Brazilian art as having a cannibalistic relationship to European tradition. Marie-Laure Bernadac and Anne Baldassari have noted a similar “cannibalistic� quality in Picasso’s studies after the Old Masters. His reworkings of Rembrandt, Cranach, and Velasquez, Delacroix, Courbet and Manet are more radical than is usually acknowledged: replacing three-dimensional form with decorative patterning, he rejects the fundamental project of Western art. There is also more to be said about the profoundly aggressive quality of Picasso’s later pictures. An outsider inside the “imaginary museum,� he sometimes behaves like a teenager scrawling moustaches and penises on the walls.
Picasso died the wealthiest and most famous artist of our his century. His prodigious talent, and the enigmatic nature of his unceasing artistic vitality, made him into a legendary figure in his own lifetime. John Berger penetrates the aura that surrounds Picasso. He retraces his life and work from childhood in Spain, through the blue period, cubism, and Guernica to his last drawings. In doing so he suggests that Picasso was a ‘vertical invader� from Europe’s feudal past, a ‘primitive� man who burst upon a complex civilization and conquered it. Berger also analyses the price Picasso paid for that conquest, in exile, isolation and loneliness. He shows how the phenomenon of Picasso’s success was connected less with his art than with the nostalgic, nineteenth-century idea of genius that he evoked in others; and how, in holding on to this ideal, he separated himself from history.
by John Berger
John Berger is perhaps best know for his trilogy ‘Into Their Labours� and the novel ‘G� but he was also a famous art critic and writer of the internationally acclaimed ‘Ways of Seeing�. In ‘Success and Failure of Picasso� he gives his original vision of the ‘vertical invader� Picasso.
John Berger describes Picasso as a “vertical invader� from Spain into France: “always he has subjected what he has seen around him to a comparison with what he brought with him from his own country, from the past.� Berger borrows the idea of the “vertical invader� from José Ortega y Gasset, who in turn borrowed it from Walther Rathenau. For Rathenau and Ortega, the invaders are the peasants and workers who have traditionally been excluded from civil society but now demand political and cultural representation. For Berger, Picasso’s Spanish roots make him an artistic outsider in France, his work impelled by a sense of difference and exclusion.
Picasso’s “invader� status also relates his work to the postcolonial critique of modernism. Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropófago� of 1928 describes Brazilian art as having a cannibalistic relationship to European tradition. Marie-Laure Bernadac and Anne Baldassari have noted a similar “cannibalistic� quality in Picasso’s studies after the Old Masters. His reworkings of Rembrandt, Cranach, and Velasquez, Delacroix, Courbet and Manet are more radical than is usually acknowledged: replacing three-dimensional form with decorative patterning, he rejects the fundamental project of Western art. There is also more to be said about the profoundly aggressive quality of Picasso’s later pictures. An outsider inside the “imaginary museum,� he sometimes behaves like a teenager scrawling moustaches and penises on the walls.
Picasso died the wealthiest and most famous artist of our his century. His prodigious talent, and the enigmatic nature of his unceasing artistic vitality, made him into a legendary figure in his own lifetime. John Berger penetrates the aura that surrounds Picasso. He retraces his life and work from childhood in Spain, through the blue period, cubism, and Guernica to his last drawings. In doing so he suggests that Picasso was a ‘vertical invader� from Europe’s feudal past, a ‘primitive� man who burst upon a complex civilization and conquered it. Berger also analyses the price Picasso paid for that conquest, in exile, isolation and loneliness. He shows how the phenomenon of Picasso’s success was connected less with his art than with the nostalgic, nineteenth-century idea of genius that he evoked in others; and how, in holding on to this ideal, he separated himself from history.
December 28, 2018
Great critique - well worth considering Bergers arguments on Picasso's contribution to world art and, what I found fascinating, the development of prodigious talent from childhood and how that might colour one's world view.
December 7, 2011
This 1989 edition of the book includes a brief intro by the author explaining the book's initial reception in 1965 when its subject was still living; and a third chapter written in the '80s, after Picasso's death. In a way a response to the ineffectual hagiography that surrounded Picasso, Berger, a Marxist, attempts to explain the artist as a product of his place (feudal, anarchistic Spain), his time, his personal isolation as an exile and deified celebrity. Berger shows how Picasso's style was a new primitive expression, a rejection of intellectual analysis. His success was this creation, painting as stark emotional experience. His failures, Berger suggests, lay in several works that are rooted in nothing and are thus absurd; his acceptance of bourgeois values that offered nothing of substance; and his lack of originality in his later years. The essay is learned, if a bit erratic as it swerves from notion to notion; Berger's assessment of Picasso's '50s self-mocking drawings is especially good.
July 16, 2018
Bella analisi!
Non so se fosse corretta o se ci sono pecche nelle interpretazioni, non ho i mezzi per valutarlo.
Mi ha coinvolto, mi ci sono ritrovato, aderisco al pensiero di Berger.
Ed il bello, per me, come sensazione, è che questo pensiero fino ad una settimana fa mi era in buona parte sconosciuto, e quindi leggere si è trasformata in una scoperta, quasi una rilevazione.
Ho appena terminata la lettura, e son forse troppo entusiasmato per essere obiettivo, ma penso di non sbagliarmi molto nel dire che ha ampliato la mia comprensione, probabilmente anche il mio modo di vedere e leggere alcune opere d’arte (non solo di Picasso), con più coraggio e spirito critico.
A mio modo di vedere la figura di Picasso ne esce rafforzata, oltre che più umana
Non so se fosse corretta o se ci sono pecche nelle interpretazioni, non ho i mezzi per valutarlo.
Mi ha coinvolto, mi ci sono ritrovato, aderisco al pensiero di Berger.
Ed il bello, per me, come sensazione, è che questo pensiero fino ad una settimana fa mi era in buona parte sconosciuto, e quindi leggere si è trasformata in una scoperta, quasi una rilevazione.
Ho appena terminata la lettura, e son forse troppo entusiasmato per essere obiettivo, ma penso di non sbagliarmi molto nel dire che ha ampliato la mia comprensione, probabilmente anche il mio modo di vedere e leggere alcune opere d’arte (non solo di Picasso), con più coraggio e spirito critico.
A mio modo di vedere la figura di Picasso ne esce rafforzata, oltre che più umana
August 29, 2017
Picasso ile ilgili okuduğum ilk kitap.
Öncesini sonrasını, yalnızlığını ününü şanını, İspanya'yı Fransa'yı dünyayı, gençliği sanatı yaşlılığı, dünyayı değiştirmiş bir insanın hayatını tadına doyulmaz bir şekilde anlatmış yazar.
Derin sanat yorumlarına vakıf olabilecek bir birikimim olmamasına rağmen keyifle okudum.
Kitap Picasso üzerinden hepimizin çokca sorguladığı birçok duyguyu öyle güzel ele alıyor öyle güzel betimliyor ki tadı damağımda kaldı.
Öncesini sonrasını, yalnızlığını ününü şanını, İspanya'yı Fransa'yı dünyayı, gençliği sanatı yaşlılığı, dünyayı değiştirmiş bir insanın hayatını tadına doyulmaz bir şekilde anlatmış yazar.
Derin sanat yorumlarına vakıf olabilecek bir birikimim olmamasına rağmen keyifle okudum.
Kitap Picasso üzerinden hepimizin çokca sorguladığı birçok duyguyu öyle güzel ele alıyor öyle güzel betimliyor ki tadı damağımda kaldı.
May 18, 2011
Berger delves into the variety of influences on Picasso's life and work, from the history of Spanish feudalism, bourgeois Europe, WWI &II, anarchy, physics, the rise of European industrialism, American capitalism, Communism, Cubism, the birth of Surrealism, and other fun-filled topics. He even gets around to Picasso's mistresses, too.
December 5, 2020
Resim sanatı ile ilgili bir kitabın bu kadar ilgi çekici olabileceğini ve sıkılmadan okunabileceğini düşünmezdim. Görme Biçimleri’ni de aynı heyecan ve ilgiyle okumuştum bu kitapta da öyle oldu. Resmi daha iyi anlamak için mutlaka okunmalı.
March 9, 2021
Temperament is simply a convenient term for explaining away what a man is. The temperament must be analysed. This can be done physiologically and psychologically by direct examination. It can also be done � and this has so far been my purpose in this essay � historically.
Evaluating Picasso’s personality and artwork through the medium of history, John Berger has written a captivating interpretation of Picasso as a naïve artist struggling to find his subjects. Defined by his origins in Spain and status as a foreigner in France, Picasso was a child genius who found Cubism but ultimately remained static as an artist, never reaching maturation. While at times slipping past the modern boundaries of interpretive license and into the realm of speculation, Berger’s theory of Picasso is nonetheless sharp and enlightening.
Freudian analysis, whatever else it may offer in other circumstances, is of no great help here, because it is concerned primarily with symbolism and the unconscious.
The Success and Failure of Picasso can be understood within the framework of its own historical context, one where Freud and Jung held in thrall the imaginations of intellectuals and pseudointellectuals alike, making psychoanalysis both a new technique in psychiatry and a sensational new hobby. Although Berger explicitly denies taking a psychoanalytic, or psychological, approach and defends his use of historical methodology, the evidence of Freud’s influence is evident in Berger's sexual digressions and his direct and indirect references to the anima, primitive, and archaic.
Evaluating Picasso’s personality and artwork through the medium of history, John Berger has written a captivating interpretation of Picasso as a naïve artist struggling to find his subjects. Defined by his origins in Spain and status as a foreigner in France, Picasso was a child genius who found Cubism but ultimately remained static as an artist, never reaching maturation. While at times slipping past the modern boundaries of interpretive license and into the realm of speculation, Berger’s theory of Picasso is nonetheless sharp and enlightening.
Freudian analysis, whatever else it may offer in other circumstances, is of no great help here, because it is concerned primarily with symbolism and the unconscious.
The Success and Failure of Picasso can be understood within the framework of its own historical context, one where Freud and Jung held in thrall the imaginations of intellectuals and pseudointellectuals alike, making psychoanalysis both a new technique in psychiatry and a sensational new hobby. Although Berger explicitly denies taking a psychoanalytic, or psychological, approach and defends his use of historical methodology, the evidence of Freud’s influence is evident in Berger's sexual digressions and his direct and indirect references to the anima, primitive, and archaic.
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