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Pablo Picasso,part 2

© Nick Burton

Picasso had married Olga Khoklova in 1918, a member of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes whom the artist met in 1917 during the production of Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau's ballet " Parade" for which Piacsso designed costumes. His painting now turned away form cubism to ward a more classical style in works such as "Portrait of Olga in an Armchair" (1917) and a bit later, "Seated Harlequin (Painter Jacinto Salvado) " (1921) . He also began a series of paintings at this time that featured giant female figures with outsized hands and arms in paintings such as " The Siesta" (1919) and "Women Running on the Beach (The Race)" (1922).

In 1925, after watching the Ballet Russes rehearse, he completed his remarkable work, "The Three Dancers", abstract figures that seem distorted and disturbed, very much like the "Demoiselles" in motion. These figures were flat, violent images quite unlike anything else in figurative art.

In 1927, Picasso met Marie-Therese Walter, and this new young mistress was his model for yet another new direction in painting in the works " Reclining Nude" (1931) and "The Dream" (1932), pictures that found the figure with its limbs now drawn in towards the body, much in contrast to the elongated limbs found in of much of his work. He also executed many sculptures using Marie-Therese, having purchased the Chateau de Boisgeloup to use as a studio.

Picasso had made many paintings concerning the crucifixion of Christ, and in 1930, completed his painting of the coruscation based on the canvas by Mathis Grunewald made in 1516. Completely composed of surreal and abstract forms, this small work is seen as a painting that captures a sense of horror and that anticipates his next great work, "Guernica."

During the last week of April, 1937, the small Basque town of Guernica in Spain was bombed by the German aircraft of the Condor Legion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel von Richtofen, leaving 1,664 deaths. Commissioned by the Spanish government to make a mural for its pavilion at the World's Fair in Paris, Picasso painted "Geurnica" - a huge, black white and grey tableau that depicted the frozen horrors of the attack as distorted, twisted and screaming human and animal figures that assault the viewer like surreal news photos. "Guernica" was seen as much as a crucifixion of innocents as his religious painting had been. Picasso began making studies for the work the day after he heard the news of the bombing.

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