MYSTERIES

Mysteries, Magic and Powers of Art

 

Photo: Pablo Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon-"my first exorcism painting," in the words of the artist. 1907, oil on canvas, 244 x 234 cm. Collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Photo: copyright 1966 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The new Western interest in African objects' functions may be manifested by artists themselves. After a visit to an exhibition in which Ethiopian talismans were presented as medicinal rather than as merely aesthetic objects, teachers at Paris' Ecole des Beaux-arts wanted to invite the talisman-maker Gedewon to create a workshop there for a month, for they saw in his works a force "much larger" than that in works based purely in the aesthetic. They were interested in his "stance." Picasso spoke similarly of the objects that so strongly impressed him on his famous visit to the Trocadero one day in 1907. Talking thirty years later, to Andre Malraux, he described his sudden realization that African masks were not just "good forms," as they were for his friends Andre Derain and Georges Braque, but "magic things," "intercessors" between men and evil, "tools" against pain and danger. It was at that moment, he said, that he understood what it meant to be a painter. In many respects, the thinking of Parisian artists today is continuous with that of Picasso. They feel an artist's emotion in front of Ethiopian talismans, and they are probably familiar with Picasso's adventure, even if they don't remember it at that moment. In their educational role, they are particularly versed in the evolution of the artwork and its meanings during our century: subject to a greater and greater defoliation, part ideological, part critical, it has been either relieved or voided of its essence, depending on one's point of view. This may be the cause of their enthusiasm for overdetermined, violent works. In 1907, Picasso reacted to the Trocadero experience by painting the final version of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon: "They [the demoiselles] must have arrived that day, but not at all because of the [African] forms: because it was my first exorcism canvas" (Malraux 1974:17-18).

 

 

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