Young Pablo Picasso created Acrobat Family with Monkey in 1905 with a variety of medium, representing a family most likely in Picasso’s time. While employing diagonal composition to create a sense of dynamic movement, by using distinctive brushstroke, light and warm color, Picasso captured the sentimental mood in a domestic setting in his Rose period and began to develop a sense of expressionism, differ from his previous pieces in the blue period as well as the Analytical Cubism later in his career.
Overview and First Impression
As the title has suggested, the subject of the painting is a acrobat family. In the foreground, there are totally four figures: a man sitting in the left right side, a woman holding a baby in the center in the painting, as well as a monkey in the lower right corner. The clothing on the figures are plain, shows no detail except the color. The artist also used defined lines to distinguish each figure from each other and from the background. In the background, there is not concrete object; rather, Picasso use a generative stoke and divide the background into three color palette from left to right: orange, green and blueish. There is no clear division of horizontal line thus the painting convey less depth compare with classical or Renaissance painting in the 15th century, generating the viewer’s focus entirely on the family in the foreground. All the the figures, including the monkey in the lower right corner, are staring directly to the baby in the center. Thus, Picasso used this kind of gas to direct the viewer’s focal point, from the man to the woman and monkey, and come back to the woman and the child.
At the first glaze of the painting, the painting seems not demanding nor inviting, as if the window created by Picasso is a separate world and the characters inside has no desire or show no interest to the audience and the outside world. Although the stoke is relatively expressive, there is no tension involved, generated a calming effect on the viewers.
Subject Matter and Composition
By choosing the subject of the Acrobat family and depicting the the scene of a domestic setting, Picasso focused on the idea of maternity and motherhood and continue to raise awareness of human suffering. Unlike Matisse’s The Joy of Life which depict the ideal modern life, Picasso was more concern with the the lower class in the society. As a common theme for Picasso’s painting in the period, both the concept of the Acrobat Family as well as the coddling of mother and child actually appeared in numerous paintings in his Rose Period. On the other hand, animal is also a common subject in Picasso’s Rose period. Similar with Boy Leading a Horse, done by Picasso one year later in 1906, here animal also took a part in the painting. Combining those elements together, it still generates a harmonious effect. The parents’s heads both are tilting down and only the monkey is tilting upwards, suggesting an sense of hierarchy in the nature world.
It is symbolically expressive in which the every aspects seems not carefully drafted, which may be inferred as a way of implying the social and economical status of the family. The man and woman seems really young, perhaps in their early 20s, yet is having their baby. Moreover, both of the female and male figures are extremely skinny, aids to the idea that they are poor regarding their economic situation. Picasso done this by creating figures who are vastly different from the traditional symbol of beauty in human body. In the artwork, most of the body is revealed however, another interesting fact one should notice is that, there is no evident support detail that the acrobat member except the hat and the clown outfit wear by the man. This may could be treated as a supporting evidence that by roughly creating the outfit, Picasso is trying to convey the idea of life situation faced in real world as they have no accessories or any kind of furnishing decorations.
While the figures occupied over half of the space, it shows limited personality of the individual; rather, they seems more intertwined with each other. Furthermore, it is clear that the baby almost turn 360 degree, sitting in her mother’s legs, showing both the front of the legs and the front of his face. With the fact that it is almost impossible to achieve this position in real life, we could infer that this may be an attempt for Picasso who is thinking about the different sides and different representation of human figures, in relation to his idea of Cubism later in this career.
Regarding the composition, the diagonally recessive style created a feeling of dynamic and liveness. In this painting, no subject is taken an absolute dominate nor subordinate position. All figures, taken a comparably equal size on canvas, shared the space equally. The blue background suggests that they are in a indoor environment, most likely their home as they seems relaxed and placid. There is no overlapping over the figures and neither was the line contour and in the same time, all figures created a triangular shape, balanced and stabilized the painting. Therefore, since the facial expression are roughly depicted, the figure itself does’t contribute to our understanding of the figure’s personality. The idea of maternity is highlighted here and as all the gazes are towards the baby the mother and the poverty depicted here could also considered as a major theme in this case.
Lines and Brushwork
Unlike Picasso’s later work, in Acrobat Family with Monkey, his brushwork is rather obvious and process an expressive idea of style, possibly trying to capture emotion rather than focusing on the actual appearance of the subject. For instance, regarding the monkey, Picasso employed a relatively thin brushstroke to depict the subtle fur on the animal whereas with the figure, the brushwork is loose and general.
One of the most representative aspect is that there is clear black outline, especially with the Acrobat family. Compare with the stroke for the background, which is loose and thin, for the figures, they are more firm and thick. We can clearly see different layers of the brushwork on top of each other and created a rough tonalities and textures, emphasizing on the vulnerability and instability of the subject. However, one could clearly observed that Picasso, disregarding all the details on the clothing and background, have a definite focus on the hand of the figures. For instance, he used lines to create great details for the hands , depicting every figures and joints. Similarly, the monkey has a general body while and paws can be clearly located.
Light and Use of Color
By employed mostly light rose red, Cerulean blue and baby green, Picasso generated a feeling of love and affection; however, none of the colors are solid, implies some degrees of uncertainty and volatility. The color contrast is also strong — the human figures, where Picasso use warm colors such as light Carmine Pink and vanilla, and cream white and the background, where cold colors such as Denim and pine green.
Also, the color palette is extremely similar with that of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, only with more obvious trail of brushwork. The vague color of the background also may suggest the constant movement the family experienced as the title “Acrobat family” has indicated. This could explain why that compare with the background, the color used for humans and organic substance are more mediated whereas the color in the background is less concrete.
From another point of view, although it is unclear whether Picasso is drawing from imagination or in front of real human models, (while the prior assumption would be more likely), Picasso, here in this painting is not trying to mimic the optical experience in a classical salon way; instead, he used a more impressionistic technique record the sensory experience. As Wilhelm Worringer has mentioned in Abstraction and Empathy, “the need for empathy can be looked upon as a presupposition of artistic volition only where this artistic volition inclines towards the truths of organic life, that is toward naturalism in the higher sense.” Picasso has achieved this by using less mediated color with Nevertheless, instead of thinking more about flat planes as one might imagined, Picasso in this painting still continues to tried to create sense of three-dimension by employing light on both the female and the male.
Conclusion
Unlike his later work where he mostly focus on challenging the convention of linear perspective and other traditional ways of drawing, his Acrobat Family with Monkey here is more realistic from a conventional perspective. By portraying a mother and the child, Picasso proposed a timelessness theme of motherhood and love while focus on the real life. Through the painting, one could identified the social and psychological standing of the impoverished family, which could also be a reflection of the his life of poverty as he moved to Paris in 1900, granting powerful emotion to the work. From other subtle details such as the bend of the child, one could also observe certain trend to cubism Picasso established five years later, marking this piece of work an interesting stage in his evolving style.
Reference
- Wilhelm Worringer, from Abstraction and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style (1908), in Art in Theory, 1900–2000, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, rev.ed. (Blackwell, 2003), 66–69
