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Picasso Pablo - the Burial of Count Orgaz & Other Poems by Pierre Joris
"Pablo Picasso may be the most famous and influential artist of the twentieth century. What few know is that in 1935, at age 54, Picasso stopped painting, and for a time devoted himself entirely to poetry. Even after eventually resuming his visual work, Picasso continued to write, in a characteristic torrent, until 1959 - leaving a body of poems that Andre Breton praised as, "an intimate journal, both of the feelings and the senses, such as has never been kept before." Near the end of his life, Picasso himself would tell a friend that, "long after his death his writing would gain recognition and encyclopedias would say: 'Picasso, Pablo Ruiz - Spanish poet who dabbled in painting, drawing and sculpture.'"" Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris have overseen a project to translate the majority of this writing into English for the first time. Working from Picasso's Spanish and French (he wrote in both languages), they have enlisted the help of over a dozen colleagues in order to mark, as they note in their introduction, "Picasso's entry into our own time." Picasso's poems are as protean, erotic, scatological, and experimental as his visual art - yet they arrive as a twenty-first century surprise, even for many devotees.
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First published December 1, 2004
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About the author
Pablo Picasso
987 books961 followersPablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and the anti-war painting Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.
Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.
Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.
Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.
Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 8, 2014
*(edited to include a less anus-centric excerpt)
It only slowly dawned on me how great Picasso's poetry is; how unique it is, how vital, how raw, how nourishing. In the editorial parts of this collection there is mention of Picasso's wrestling with contemporary world events in his poetry, and even a comparison of it with Finnegans Wake, but I read it as the best kind of absolute self-indulgence, in no way intentionally concerned with world events, and certainly not calculated at microscopic intellectual levels like Finnegans Wake. It is simply the poetry of a hot-blooded man writing to please himself, and writing quickly, with very little if any filtering by thought. That it "responds" to contemporary world events is no more than a by-product of Picasso himself being fully alive to current events; there is no detached intellectual intention behind it. This is a poetry of the body and of sensations, with the managing intellect playing a very minor role. Intellect is present, no doubt, but it is as if subsumed by sensation. It is written as if the brain were a mouth and eyes with a set of hands.
antipathetic firing range azure crab-louse and turnip-cabage canticle phantom of bronze riveted to the granite of the clouds shit and shit plus shit equals all the shits multiplied by shit mucus of glosses pestilential breath of the wind rose's anus double cream cocoon spinning perfect love hanging from its pustules slowly stewing on the so sweet fire of her eyes horror and despair a piece of black pudding resting on a wad of cotton the operation having succeeded perfectly turned away from every thing's line of sight holding the nostrils of the heap of tensions...
(and an asshole apparently)
and by a tar painted boat cut by the frame the detailed description of the events of the month days hours of the plus and the minus and of the garlic sauces with marsh-mallows with peppers and with caresses on the naked trunk of the morning air of this burning day finely chopping the edges of the handkerchief of this sky spread out to dry on clouds flowing through the slits of closed shutters the snails of the mayonnaise of petrified light dirtying happiness with the licks of its tongue on the furniture stretching woken up by the bells' ears budding branches...
This is not a poetry of perfect aesthetic wholeness (obviously), but rather a poetry of slabs and thrusts and forces that could seeming go on forever, and so is perfect for excerpting, and in fact almost all of it reads like an excerpt of Picasso's internal/external life, rendered in daily slabs: a swarthy butcher's poetry delivering endless slices of the nourishing goods.
It only slowly dawned on me how great Picasso's poetry is; how unique it is, how vital, how raw, how nourishing. In the editorial parts of this collection there is mention of Picasso's wrestling with contemporary world events in his poetry, and even a comparison of it with Finnegans Wake, but I read it as the best kind of absolute self-indulgence, in no way intentionally concerned with world events, and certainly not calculated at microscopic intellectual levels like Finnegans Wake. It is simply the poetry of a hot-blooded man writing to please himself, and writing quickly, with very little if any filtering by thought. That it "responds" to contemporary world events is no more than a by-product of Picasso himself being fully alive to current events; there is no detached intellectual intention behind it. This is a poetry of the body and of sensations, with the managing intellect playing a very minor role. Intellect is present, no doubt, but it is as if subsumed by sensation. It is written as if the brain were a mouth and eyes with a set of hands.
antipathetic firing range azure crab-louse and turnip-cabage canticle phantom of bronze riveted to the granite of the clouds shit and shit plus shit equals all the shits multiplied by shit mucus of glosses pestilential breath of the wind rose's anus double cream cocoon spinning perfect love hanging from its pustules slowly stewing on the so sweet fire of her eyes horror and despair a piece of black pudding resting on a wad of cotton the operation having succeeded perfectly turned away from every thing's line of sight holding the nostrils of the heap of tensions...
(and an asshole apparently)
and by a tar painted boat cut by the frame the detailed description of the events of the month days hours of the plus and the minus and of the garlic sauces with marsh-mallows with peppers and with caresses on the naked trunk of the morning air of this burning day finely chopping the edges of the handkerchief of this sky spread out to dry on clouds flowing through the slits of closed shutters the snails of the mayonnaise of petrified light dirtying happiness with the licks of its tongue on the furniture stretching woken up by the bells' ears budding branches...
This is not a poetry of perfect aesthetic wholeness (obviously), but rather a poetry of slabs and thrusts and forces that could seeming go on forever, and so is perfect for excerpting, and in fact almost all of it reads like an excerpt of Picasso's internal/external life, rendered in daily slabs: a swarthy butcher's poetry delivering endless slices of the nourishing goods.
June 26, 2016
Admittedly I've only ever read his poetry while drunk- friend of mine really loves it, so every weekend when I'm at his place we read from it- but honestly that fact only confirms my opinion: Picasso's a shit poet who should have stuck to painting.
It's super mediocre. Most of my friends have casually written better poetry than this.
And normally when I read things drunk I think it's brilliant even when it's not. So I must really hate this if even vodka can't romanticize it.
Whatever Picasso, I still love you. C'est La Vie, right?
Ohmygod that was a great pun.
It's super mediocre. Most of my friends have casually written better poetry than this.
And normally when I read things drunk I think it's brilliant even when it's not. So I must really hate this if even vodka can't romanticize it.
Whatever Picasso, I still love you. C'est La Vie, right?
Ohmygod that was a great pun.
January 14, 2008
It was in Paris in 1997 when Jerome Rothenberg, one of the two editors, told me he was working on this collection, and from that time until I had it in my hands I was eager to read it. I'm still reading it and expect this to continue.
Picasso turned out to be as good a poet as you might have hoped him to be, and this as seriously good a work --and demonstration--of surrealist literary art as you might hope for. I keep reading IN it as a poet; I learn as much it as a work that belongs to its time and beyond to the uses it has for a writer in the present.
Picasso turned out to be as good a poet as you might have hoped him to be, and this as seriously good a work --and demonstration--of surrealist literary art as you might hope for. I keep reading IN it as a poet; I learn as much it as a work that belongs to its time and beyond to the uses it has for a writer in the present.
March 10, 2009
I’ve found in life that pizza joints make the best hot sandwiches around.
Maybe because the sandwich is a precise offering of their larger vision, the pizza.
And they aren’t trying to show something that will look good to the eye; and basing everything in the creation on that goal.
They just make it from what they know is good, what works, what they like, and serve it up.
I found the same correlation with painters and their poetry.
First, Picabia.
Now. Picasso.
Enjoy!
December 25, 2020
It's cool to see a Picasso on a shelf. Other than that.....just endless stream for words that seem to have been written as he fell asleep.
February 17, 2020
Pretty incredible work. Can be exhausting as the dense text has no punctuation, no capitalization and is mostly devoid of line breaks. Especially when the work becomes repetitive, it is difficult to find one's way through.
February 21, 2015
As far as creative writing by a painter goes, this is top notch, but Gertrude Stein is the better choice. Her books are shorter and they have titles; she was a pro.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews