Francis Picabia, Hera and Ridens

[mollykins]

I know he painted cubist, surrealist and dadaist works, but i'm not sure which 'hera' and 'ridens' belong to. They're definatly not cubist but they look surreal to me, but i'm not familiar with dadaism, so are they that, or both,

http://en.wikipedia.o...le:Picabia_Hera_2.JPG

http://www.abcgallery...icabia/picabia29.html

thanks for any help on their styles.

x molly

[Mr Veritas]

Well in my opinion,they are definitely not cubist.
I don't know this artist,but they lool like dadaist verging to ward surrealist.
I apologise if this doesn't help you.
According to this biography:~
http://www.picabia.com/biograph/bio_ev_p1.htm
He also dabblled in Fauvism & Orphism too,it gets more complex doesn't it.
The biography gives dates.so it may(I haven't read it) give you a clue as to your two paintings?
There might aslo be clues in his Wikipedia entry?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Picabia
and finally,Thank You this is an artist I didn't know before,but will make a further study of.
Alec.

[Mr Veritas]

PS:~
This
[email protected] <[email protected]
is the Contact us page of Picabia.com
they might be able to answer your question?

[jno]

they aren't cubist, and they aren't really surrealist either - they look more like a series of sketches overlaid on one another. I'd have said realist elements merged in a non-realist fashion, which might *just* qualify as dadaism, though on the whole I'd have said not.

[mollykins]

i'd looked on wiki, but it was a bit vague in saying that he did a lot of different styles and even if it was more specific, it would have probably been wrong.

[mollykins]

it says, in October 1928, film critic Gaston Ravel calls them “sur-impressionism”, referring to the simultaneity of superimposed film images, an impression of “the third dimension without the aid of perspective”, as Duchamp later describes them. Apart from birds and foliage, the subject matter often takes as a point of departure the classical figures of Botticelli and later Piero della Francesca.

so were these paintings done in this style, they fit the description.

[mollykins]

ggrr, i don't know what to write about him . . . .

by the way, the title of the project is work rest and play and i thought that even though the various people he paints aren't working resting and playing in the same picture, i could do a version of jsut that, in that style. The artist you pick doesn't have to exactly fit the title but if you can take inspiration and make up your own piece that does fit the title, you get good marks.

[mollykins]

and even though he did do ltos of styles, i'm jsut talking about the stuff he did circa 1929 that are similar to the pictures in my two links.

[jno]

I don't think 'sur-impressionism' is a word - I think he's just been as puzzled as you are at how to categorise them and has simply invented a word (not a bad one, either). Do you actually need to categorise them at all? Words like that tend to be used by critics trying to force painters into pigeonholes. As an artist, just to your own thing and don't worry about what others might call them.

[mollykins]

i've done a bit of a biography and this is my last paragraph. I don't want people to rewrite for me, jsut say if it sounds right for the pieces of art that i'm inspired by.

Throughout his life, he created art in many styles, but for this project, I am taking inspiration from his range of transparency paintings, which he started in the late 1920s. Even though these [ligustri, hera and ridens] paintings don’t include people working, resting and playing, in a final piece, I could do a painting in this style, with three layers, one working, one resting and one playing.

[mollykins]

last sentence has changed, i could do a painting in the style of these artworks, consisting of three layers, each one, portarying one of the three activities in the title of this project.

[jno]

sounds good to me, though I am not a teacher.

[jno]

...or an artist, I should add!

[mollykins]

what i normally do is; paint etc a background on a page, do a rough copy of what i'm goign to write and if it will look ok, write it neatly on a nice bit of backing papaer and stick it on.

i'll write out some stuff and do backgrounds and when i go back to school, ask the teacher if its right, then stick it in if it is.