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Lot Essay
"When I see Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, I tell myself: grief for later."
(Picasso, quoted in B. Léal, C. Piot and M.-L. Bernadac, The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2003, p. 430)
When Picasso wrote this enigmatic note on the back of an envelope in 1932, he began his own chapter in the revision and re-interpretation of one of the most widely referenced figurative compositions in the western pictorial canon. Marcantonio Raimondi's engraved image of the pastoral idyll in his Judgment of Paris (1510-1520) is recognized as the first depiction of the specific arrangement of reclining figures within an outdoor setting. Manet's own interpretation – the first to be titled Déjeuner sur l'herbe and unquestionably the most celebrated version – itself closely resembles a painting by Titian (previously attributed to Giorgione), Le concert champêtre.
What undoubtedly attracted Picasso to the image, as much as its power to inspire dialogue between the great masters of the past, was the succès de scandale surrounding the public display in 1863 of Manet's painting. Picasso's approach to the subject was characteristically intimate and personal. Working on painted, drawn and sculpted variations for a period of almost three years between 1959 and 1962, Picasso freely adapted the composition to bring to the fore elements of sensuality and the dramatic interplay between the characters.
(fig. 1) Eduard Manet, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
(fig. 2) Pablo Picasso, Les Baigneuses, 1961.
(Picasso, quoted in B. Léal, C. Piot and M.-L. Bernadac, The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2003, p. 430)
When Picasso wrote this enigmatic note on the back of an envelope in 1932, he began his own chapter in the revision and re-interpretation of one of the most widely referenced figurative compositions in the western pictorial canon. Marcantonio Raimondi's engraved image of the pastoral idyll in his Judgment of Paris (1510-1520) is recognized as the first depiction of the specific arrangement of reclining figures within an outdoor setting. Manet's own interpretation – the first to be titled Déjeuner sur l'herbe and unquestionably the most celebrated version – itself closely resembles a painting by Titian (previously attributed to Giorgione), Le concert champêtre.
What undoubtedly attracted Picasso to the image, as much as its power to inspire dialogue between the great masters of the past, was the succès de scandale surrounding the public display in 1863 of Manet's painting. Picasso's approach to the subject was characteristically intimate and personal. Working on painted, drawn and sculpted variations for a period of almost three years between 1959 and 1962, Picasso freely adapted the composition to bring to the fore elements of sensuality and the dramatic interplay between the characters.
(fig. 1) Eduard Manet, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
(fig. 2) Pablo Picasso, Les Baigneuses, 1961.