Friday 22 January 2016

Picasso as Cat (EPPH demo)





Cat Catching a Bird 1939, France








EPPH readers will notice the shapes common between the bird and cat connect meaning.

Does the bird's wound look like an opening from an eye? The bird's body is the shape of the cat eyes. Bones inside the wound echo teeth forms in the cat's mouth. Within the cat's left eye is a lowercase "a. "A clue to a trend? Note the angular cat's nose. "P" horizontally. "O" at the cat's nostril. Other letters, i, c, s, may also be there.

 Is Picasso identifying himself with the cat and wounded bird? Does his imagination have empathy with the afflicted bird as well as the feline huntress? I think so. His homeland, Spain was experiencing civil war. His mother died about 3 months prior to this painting.  He likely suffered grief, anger and a myriad of human emotions. Channeling such emotional energy into one's artwork must have been apart of his daily work.  Making art is expression. He and you, reader, benefit from the grounded primal(cat, self-actualizing) as well as heavenward(bird, self-actualizing) perspective of unapologetic life.

What is the white scumbling paint application at the cat's left ear? Crude face? Compare that ear with a skull Picasso sculpted years later during World War II. Picasso as cat, has death on its mind as if to remind himself that even the hunter succumbs to it. Isn't this the artist expressing in 3rd person? Notice the cat's differing eye treatments. Multiple perspectives existing together.


Skull 1943, France



In summary, Picasso's imagination as cat identifies with aggressive primal nature. He added sand to this painting. Grit and guts. Vision, additional vision. He exemplifies expression assisted by oneself and one's contemporary conditions before one's end.









Having awareness heightened from reading and thinking about how Every Painter Paints Themselves, I noticed an artwork in my music collection differently. Mike Keneally's painting for his Wine and Pickles recording always seemed like a splashy green figure on purple background. After considering Picasso's Cat Catching a Bird exhibiting a face within a face(I suspect), I noticed he'd done the same.
Backwards Deb(3rd Person) the track I especially like from the record, took on demonstrated reflection.
Mike Keneally musical recording, 2008

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