The Four Little Girls and Desire Caught by The Tail

by Pablo Picasso

In the 1940s, Picasso wrote two plays in the first, Desire Caught by the Tail, was conceived during the German occupation of Paris and features a cast of grotesque allegorical characters such as the Onion, Silence or Fat Anxiety discussing the crucial wartime themes of hunger, cold and love; the second, The Four Little Girls, came about a few years after the end of the war on the French Riviera, and presents the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of four unnamed girls in a vegetable garden, revealing an unexpectedly evil aspect of childhood. These surreal compositions, which were meant to be read aloud rather than formally staged, are a testament to the great artist's imaginative powers, and have been considered as forerunners to the theatre of the absurd of the 1950s, as exemplified by Beckett, Ionesco and Adamov. This volume also contains the accompanying illustrations by Picasso himself.

101 pages, Paperback

Published September 25, 2019

About the author

Pablo 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.

Reviews

[Mariana · Rating 2 out of 5]

é sabido universalmente que Picasso é um génio na sua arte, mas será que é em todas as artes?

não conhecia a escrita de Picasso, nem sabia que ele tinha escrito o que quer que fosse antes de encontrar este livro, que contém duas peças de teatro.

são duas histórias que não vão ficar na minha memória, a não ser pelo quão pouco surpreendentes foram para mim.

aceito que “the four little girls” ainda fique na minha cabeça por uns tempos pela aleatoriedade da peça e até pela violência das crianças - as ‘four little girls’. é muito difícil distinguir as várias personagens pois todas têm ações estranhas e sem contexto. a história também não tem grande plot o que, numa peça de teatro, torna mais difícil acompanhar a ideia do autor.

no fundo, ambas as peças me parecem um exercício experimental de Picasso dentro do surrealismo - como se fosse uma pintura abstrata em tons escuros com uma pincelada de amarelo porque, afinal de contas, mesmo maléficas, são crianças. acho que podem ser resultado do que se passava na mente de Picasso na altura.

é sem dúvida algo fora da zona de conforto de todos nós - e acho que posso mesmo generalizar - por isso se quiserem algo bem diferente e muito imaginativo, já sabem o que experimentar!

continuarei fã de picasso como génio louco da pintura, mas fico-me por aí.

[Paige Maroney-Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fuck them kids.

[Nejra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doživjela sam otkriče kada sam u knjižari pronašla (i to na popustu) knjigu koja sadrži dvije drame napisane ni manje ni više od strane Pabla Picassa.
Obje drame su nastale u toku ili nakon II svjetskog rata, te Picasso kroz surealnost predočava ljubav, djetinjstvo, strah, glad za vrijeme rata.
Ipak više mi se dopala primjesa, nego sama izvedba. Obje drame nemaju nikakvu konkretnu radnju. Međutim Picasso uspjeva prenijeti strahovitu emociju djetinjstva u ratu (sa dramom The four little girls).
Druga drama Desire caught by the tail mi se puno više dopala, naročito jasno izraženi karakteri koji tumače anksioznost.
Jako je dobar uvod, napisan od Rolanda Penrose, koji piše o tom vječitom pitanju da li se slikar može izraziti književnički, a pjesnik kroz plastičnu umjetnost.
Picasso iako poetičan on i u književnosti ima glas slikara.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Confusing, the plays are just a total nonsense. Picasso seems to just have written down random words without any order and sense. He may be a genius in painting, but he is definitely not a genius in literature.