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4 [Background info] [K-6: Looking] [K-6: Making] [7-12]
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, after Manet 13 July 1961
oil on canvas 60 x 73 (cat. 23)
Musée National Picasso, Paris
© Succession Picasso, Paris, Viscopy Ltd, Sydney, 2002
SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGE:
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, after Manet 4 July 1961
Linocut 53.3 x 64 (image) (cat. 24)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
© Succession Picasso, Paris, Viscopy Ltd, Sydney, 2002
To understand a thing we normally pick it up, hold it up to different lights, feel it, possibly taste it and experience it from different angles. It is as if that thing is the sum of all these relative positions. About an idea we sometimes say, "Let me drive it around the block a few times." Or, as Picasso himself put it: 'I am a Spaniard. Just as a torero takes his bull through all kinds of passes, I like to take my pictures through all kinds of variations.'
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe may have started as a homage to Manet but Picasso transformed it into a homage to Cézanne as well. The male figures in Manet's painting have shed their clothes. Manet was arguably the first painter to have set the literal flat picture plane with its coloured brushmarks in tension with the illusion of real solid objects in three dimensions. The lessons he learnt from Manet and Cézanne can be seen in the way Picasso makes figures vacillate between silhouettes and spatial constructions (we could easily imagine reconstituting them in three dimensions). In Cézanne's Bathers series it was his habit to define the figures in their setting all at once, so that they are simultaneously adjusted to one another and adapted the whole. In using a restricted range of colours, Picasso also alternatively draws and paints, fusing the figures to their setting.
While employing this well-established landscape tradition Picasso reaches further back to the feelings evoked by Ancient Greek art, with its wholesome and easy sense of physical well-being.
K-6
LOOKING IDEAS
Sit down and look at this image. Where are we?
Closely observe these figures. Look around your class and describe how these figures might look different from your classmates. Invent a story about why they have no clothes.
Imagine being the characters in this painting. Role-play this scene and invent some conversations.
Describe the temperature of this painting. Is it hot or cold? Name the colours the artist has used to give this feeling. What colours would give the opposite mood or feeling? Deliver an eye-witness report from this scene, detailing the location, time of day, temperature. Describe what is going on.
Picasso based this painting on one he had seen by a famous French artist named Manet, called Luncheon on the grass. What do you think the people in Picasso's painting would like to eat for their lunch today? Invent a menu for them.
Look at Manet's painting (in a book or on the Internet) and Picasso's. Spot the differences. What is missing?
Which luncheon party would you like to join?
Read the dates on both these paintings. Visualise the type of clothes that the main female figure might wear for Manet's painting in 1863. What type of clothes would the people wear for Picasso's painting in 1961?
MAKING IDEAS
Experiment mixing paint colours and create a cool colour scheme and its opposite, a warm colour scheme. Paint a warm background landscape for Picasso's figures.
Create a picnic basket of food for Picasso's figures so they can enjoy a lunch on the grass. Paint or draw the food and basket etc, on card. Cut out and arrange. Alternatively make them in papier mâché and paint.
Draw a set of clothes for the people in these paintings.
LINKS TO KEY LEARNING AREAS
- HSIE: Significant Events and People, Time and Change, Environments
- English: Talking and Listening, Producing texts, Creative writing.
- Drama: Performing, Role play
- Science and Technology: Designing and Making
7-12
FRAMING QUESTIONS
Frames: Post-modern / Structural
What are the dominant elements of art in this image? How have they been used? Describe the artist's use of paint and how it has been applied.
Consider the composition. Is it static or dynamic? How does your eye move through the composition? What shape does this movement take? Research and compare this with the compositional shape of the group of people in Manet's painting. How else does Picasso's painting differ from Manet's? What is missing? What is the subject of Picasso's painting? Is Picasso inviting us to be a passive or active observer?
Discuss the situations in your own life where you actively observe people. What cues do you use to read what is happening between the people you observe. Compare this with how you have read Picasso's painting.
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