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Dedicated to Weather Reports

(19.12.2022) Pablo Picasso, according to Roland Penrose, did liken Impressionist paintings to ›weather reports‹, and apparently Picasso did say (or imply) that these paintings were ›weather reports‹ only. This might have been said half seriously, half jokingly, as it is often the case in Picasso, but why not taking it seriously for a moment. And there is something more to say on Ehrenburg and ›Thaw‹.

One) What Exactly Did Picasso Say?

We have thaw right now, and, according to the weather report, we will not have a white Chrismas. Too bad, but why not reflecting on what Picasso did say on paintings as the one above, by Monet, and showing the break-up of the ice.
It was Picasso-biographer Roland Penrose, who, in his Picasso biography (p. 153 in the edition that I have at hand), transmitted the above mentioned statement on Impressionist painting. And I am assuming that Picasso said that or did say something like that, but the context remains unclear, although Penrose did put the statement in the context of explaining what Picasso wanted to do with Cubism: leaving behind the momentary, sensual paintings of the Impressionists, by replacing them with ›living objects‹, to give back to the work of art an ›inner life‹.
The problem with the transmitting of statements by Picasso is, that, actually, one has to put them in context, staying also aware, as I have said, that Picasso often spoke half-earnest, resulting with such statements transmitting, if taken seriously, only half-truths, because Picasso, in the next moment, would say the other half, or getting at the point of saying: don’t take me too seriously. So if I said that I want to take the above statement seriously for a moment, I do not mean to defend the Impressionists or to attack Picasso as an enemy of Impressionism, no, it is not that. I mean to ask some questions here, instead, as to how the above statement does sound, if put in other contexts, in contexts other than the context of a Picasso biography that tends to glorify Picasso as a painter as well than as a man.

(Picture: DS; Snowscape with Fruits, 19.12.2022)

Luo Zhichuan, Crows in Old Trees,
early 14th century,
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two) Impressionism as Debated in the Soviet Union and in China

Picasso’s friend Ilya Ehrenburg is said to have been a lover of Impressionist paintings. So for Ehrenburg Impressionism had not to be overcome, and certainly, for Ehrenburg, painting did not die after Impressionism (this was the position of the representative of the Stalinist art establishment, Alexandr Gerasimov).
So we may say that, in the Soviet Union, at the time of the Stalinist era, Impressionism had been officially overcome by Socialist Realism, but Impressionism, for every artists reflecting on how far one was allowed to go, if one was not willing to accept the official doctrine, was something that could be worked with, and Ehrenburg, on the level of literature, did exactly that, not only by coining the name ›Thaw‹ that was given to the interlude of Soviet History after the death of Stalin, but by using impressionist techniques on the level of literature, by working with atmospheres rather, in which the slightest allusion could mean something, and that allowed to read inbetween the lines, since many, many things could not yet be said, also at the day of Ilya Ehrenburg.
In China, we may, add, Impressionism (in comparison to Socialist Realism) was debated in 1956/57, and it was asked, for example, if Impressionism was, in fact, a Realism. So perhaps a realism that could transmit nothing but weather reports, but, as we have seen, also a weather report, that, in a certain context, could be more than a mere weather report – it could be a reflection on political circumstances (as, by the way, many works in the history of Chinese painting could be, although many of them might seem, to an uninformed viewer, rather sparse in what they show and say).

Three) Asking Picasso Some Questions

If Roland Penrose had put Picasso’s statement in a context of highlighting the merits of Modernism, one should, generally, not allow that Picasso is getting away, due to his fame, with everything, and all-too easily.
If we understand that Picasso had little interest in showing the world as he did see it (momentarily), at dawn for example, but, as his friend Ehrenburg said, rather strived to show the world in his art as he did think it to be, we might ask now: what does that mean exactly? And did Picasso succeed with that, and if yes, did he succeed with that all of the time?
Because Pable Picasso might certainly have been an artist who was able, due to his abilities, to cook a soup from any ingredients. But there were also people, who found his way of painting too negligent, perhaps also too momentary, and not really, or not all of the time, as substantial as Picasso was thought and said to be (by his admirers).
What we are winning here, by reflecting on the above statement, is a) a frame of reference for scrutinizing any of Picasso’s statements; and b) a frame of reference to ask, how much does Picasso actually say, by leaving behind Impressionism and by striving for giving back an ›inner life‹ to a work of art?
Did Picasso succeed with that? Is a Picasso painting, by definition, more substantial than an Impressionist painting? If Picasso painted women, or more specifically, a series of portraits of a woman, it was, as has also been transmitted, also, or could be, about a struggle: between the way she wanted to be represented, and the way he wanted her to be represented. Picasso might have strived for finding a truth, his (perhaps momentary) truth, as to a particular woman he represented, but he may also have passed stages in such serial process, in which her truth, her wishes might have been stronger (with Picasso obeying to her), and other stages, in which he did whatever he wanted to do, imposing his truth on her. In sum one might say that Picasso staged a struggle, in such series, as to how to represent a person, and in a more generalized sense, he did so when representing the world, showing his truth, and not the way the world might have looked like to him just momentarily (at dawn for example).
It is known that Picasso, generally, strived for intense pictures and often asked visitors which, in a series, the visitor might have found le plus fort (tableau). Such force of the painting might have been ›his‹ force, or the one he was, as a painter, able to mobilize (from whatever sources). The question in the end is, and it can be raised only as to the individual work of art, did Picasso succeed with that? Is the individual painting by Picasso indeed transmitting something more interesting than a mere weather report, due to an ›inner life‹ that was given back to a work of art? And has not the Impressionist painter, perhaps, mobilized the forces of nature to fill his/her painting with an inner life that is actually more essential than a mere weather report, and, in some cases, perhaps more substantial or essential than many a painting by Picasso?

(Picture: Thaw, by Fyodor Vasilyev, 1871)

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