Collection Highlights: | Artizon Museum

Pablo PICASSO

《Landscape with Dead and Live Trees》

1919 Oil on canvas

Picasso rarely painted landscapes. In this unusual work, Picasso, after engaging in a quest for Cubism with Braque, has revived a realistic, three-dimensional style, in a new style in which what has been termed his Neoclassicism is evident. For example, the simplified buildings in the rear of the painting have traces of Cubist flatness, but the trees casting shadows and the overall space give a sense of depth and mass. That space, however, is extremely shallow; this painting looks more like a painting for a stage backdrop than a natural landscape. That effect may be related to Picasso’s working on stage design for the Ballets Russes, starting in 1916.