Miguel Ángel Medina[1]

  Volume 6, Number 2, 2016 I Full Text PDF

Article DOI:  10.21659/chitro.v6n2.09

Received on August 28, 2016.
Accepted on August 29, 2016.
Published on August 30, 2016.

 Abstract

This essay describes a proposed framework to better understand the artistic production of Pablo Picasso in the not well known period between two masterpieces, namely, The Three Dancers (1925) and Crucifixion (1930).

Introduction

The overwhelming artistic attraction of Florence was even increased in the turn from 2014 to 2015 with the great exhibition Picasso and Spanish Modernity at the Palazzo Strozzi, showing some ninety works by Picasso and other Spanish artists, ranging from painting to sculpture, drawing, engraving and even film, thanks to the new joint venture of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. This is somehow a natural sequel after the success of the previous exhibition Picasso, Miró, Dalí. Angry Young Men: the birth of Modernity, which took place at the Palazzo Strozzi between March 12th and July 17th, 2011. Eugenio Carmona was co-curator (with Christoph Vitali) of that previous exhibition and is also the curator of Picasso and Spanish Modernity. Eugenio Carmona is full professor of Arts History at the University of Málaga and is currently one of the leading experts on the huge artistic work of Picasso. In his extensive academic work, Professor Carmona has devoted many studies to different aspects of the Picassian artistic work. Although Picasso is one of the artists with more studies, monographies, and articles devoted to his art, most of this bibliography turns around the best known topics, leaving in the shadow most of his production during the second part of his life. Perhaps the most relevant academic contributions made by Eugenio Carmona are related to his efforts to make understandable some dark periods in the artistic production of Picasso. This is the case of his proposed framework to better understand the Piccasian artistic production in the period 1926-1929 through what Professor Carmona calls the iconographies of disquietude (Carmona, 1994, 2002). The aim of this essay is to review this framework and the evolving meanings of these iconographies of disquietude.

[1] Miguel Ángel Medina is a Doctor in Biology and a Graduate in History of Arts currently working as Full Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Málaga (Spain). Email:  medina@uma.es