Page 43 - Contemporary Art and Old Masters

The result is to establish a dialogue which allows visitors finer ones to the face which have a luminous precision
to discern and appreciate the echoes of the past in due to the pale double outline. With regard to the
Picasso’s work, as well as the connections and affinities colour, Picasso made subtle use of very diluted pigments
with artistic tradition that made him an artist highly which allow the white preparation to show through.
aware of the legacy of the Old Masters. The resonance of the grey tones in the background and
the emphatic presence of the woman, shown wearing a
PICASSO AND THE MUSEO DEL PRADO mantilla, reflect the artist’s appreciation of the Spanish
tradition, which is more evident here than in his other
Picasso’s training adhered to the traditional academic works on a similar subject. As with the expressive
canons. The son of a painter and professor of painting, he distortion, these are elements characteristic of both
received a careful artistic training which he completed by Picasso and of some of the great masters of the Spanish
following all the academic steps habitual in 19th-century tradition with which he always considered himself
Spain, including a study of the great works of the past in affiliated.
the Museo del Prado.
THE BUFFOON CALABACILLAS VELÁZQUEZ 1635-39
On 13 October 1897, as recorded in the Museo del MUSEO NACIONAL DEL PRADO
Prado’s Documentary Archive, Pablo Ruiz Picasso signed
his name in the copyists’ book in order to study the The buffoon Calabacillas is shown sitting on the floor in
work of Velázquez. That same year he returned to copy a corner, in a pose that would be inappropriate for any
Murillo’s Annunciation and a Venus by Titian. other type of portrait. This position and his unfocused
Picasso was always interested in the great masters of face produce an expressive distortion which makes this
the past and maintained an artistic dialogue with him work a forerunner of 20th-century art’s manipulation
throughout his career. In a letter to his friend Joaquín of portraiture. The painting was among the works that
Bras he explained: “[...] The museum of paintings is Picasso copied on his first visit to the Prado in 1895.
beautiful: Velázquez, the best of all; some magnificent
heads by El Greco; Murillo doesn’t convince me in all his The Buffoon Calabacillas Velázquez 1635-39 Donated by American Friends of
paintings; there is a very fine ‘Dolorosa’ by Titian [...].” the Prado Museum, thanks to William B. Jordan Museo Nacional del Prado
Drawings exist by Picasso of The Buffoon Calabacillas
and of Francisco Lezcano, el niño de Vallecas, as well
as testimonies to his admiration for another painter - El
Greco - who although little known or appreciated at that
period was starting to leave his mark on the avant-garde
visual imagination.

The permanent display at the Museum entitled “History
of the Museo del Prado and its buildings” includes the
document signed by Manuel Azaña which appointed
Picasso director of the Prado by a parliamentary
degree of 19 September 1936. The artist accepted the
appointment but never took formal possession of the
post.

BUST OF A WOMAN, PICASSO 1943
DONATED BY ARAMONT ART COLLECTION TO AMERICAN
FRIENDS OF THE PRADO MUSEUM

Picasso painted this canvas in a single day, on 7 October
1943, in the studio at his home on rue des Grands-
Augustins in Paris. He defined the figure with rapid, very
confident strokes, applying thicker ones to the torso and

WORLD of ART 43