Examination procedure
Seminar paper on a topic agreed with the lecturer
Prerequisites
The course is mainly designed for undergraduates, but may also be useful for PhD students
Syllabus
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1983) were the two greatest artists of the first half of the 20th century. They both worked on the international art scene for fifty years, embodying two different ideas of modernity: Matisse’s modernity was sophisticatedly stylised and intellectually controlled, whilst Picasso’s was aggressively experimental and voraciously predatory. Yet, beyond the differing stylistic outcomes of their paintings and sculptures, the two observed and studied one another throughout their lives with constant attention: this mutual attention was characterised by a mixture of admiration, mistrust and irritated distancing. This course aims to explore how these two great modernist artists measured themselves against one another: this will be done, above all, by examining the visual languages and solutions employed in their artworks.
Bibliographical references
Bibliographic and documentary resources will be provided during the course. For an introduction to the topic:
Y.-A. Bois, Matisse et Picasso, Paris, Flammarion 1999
Matisse-Picasso, a cura di E.Cowling, J.Elderfield, London, Tate Publishing 2002
Matisse. Radical invention 1913-1917, a cura di S.D'Alessandro, J.Elderfield, The Art Institute of Chicago 2010
P.Karmel, Pablo Picasso, Torino, Einaudi 2023.