Modern artists, though dissimilar in their styles, all create new ways

Modern artists, though dissimilar in their styles, all create new ways of depicting
emotion and nature. Generally, modern artists rebel against the realistic and structurally
strict paintings of earlier centuries, often creating abstract works. Pablo Picasso (Spanish,
1881-1973) was an abstractionist. His painting Girl Before a Mirror (1932) is a world
known masterpiece that exemplifies what modern art is as it has several distorted images.
Another modern artist is Henri Rousseau (French, 1844-1910). Like Picasso most of his
work is abstract, but the differences between the real world and worlds that he created are
subtler than those of Picasso. For example, his work The Dream (1910) has the bodies of
humans and animals drawn passable anatomic structure. Though Picasso’s style, colors,
and use of light in Girl Before a Mirror are dissimilar to those in Rousseau’s The Dream, both
paintings represent a subunit of modern art and abstractionism.
In his painting Girl Before a Mirror (see right), Picasso draws his
mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter staring into a mirror. In the painting, Picasso
uses a style called cubism. Cubism does not create perspective using a single
viewpoint; rather it draws objects in such a way that they appear to come from
several directions simultaneously. Cubism also involves the use of geometric
shapes. In the painting, the girl’s body is drawn using simple and complex
Figure 1: Picasso, Girl
Before a Mirror
geometric shapes. For instance, her neck is triangle and her head and breasts
are circles. Overall, the viewer can distinguish a woman’s body in the picture, but the body
drawn lacks many human attributes. This unrealistic view of the girl’s body brings in
abstract sensation to the picture.
Picasso uses colors and lighting to create different sides or personalities to the girl.
The girl’s face has two distinct sections: a light purple side and a bright yellow side. Light
purple, which resembles the night sky, may represent her tranquility at night. The light
purple side is also surrounded by what seems to be a cream colored halo. This side is also
very clean; there is no makeup. The previous aspects suggest that this segment may also
represent the girl’s younger innocence. The contrasting bright yellow side, which is the
color of the sun, may signify the girl’s vitality during the day. A halo does not surround this
section. In stead it is covered in makeup, bright red lipstick and blush as well as green eye
shadow. This side may also symbolize the girl’s older sexually active self. In addition to the
contrasting views represented on the girl’s face, another side of the girl is shown within her
reflection. The reflection is a death head as indicated by the dark purple shading and the
black eye sockets. The death head correspond to the girl’s future.
Rousseau does not use cubism in his painting, The Dream (see right), in fact the
woman and animals are drawn rather realistically. But he still
manages to create abstraction by joining together contrasting
items. In the painting, the main juxtaposition is a naked
Figure 2: Rousseau, The Dream
woman lying on a sofa in the middle of the jungle. This
strange combination brings together the rural and the wild. Rousseau increases the amount
of abstractionism by drawing greenery from various parts of the world. Rousseau never
saw a real jungle; he simply drew random plants from botanicals he visited and literature
that he read.
Rousseau uses colors and lights to distinguish animals and plants from another. For
instance, each plant type is a different color. Varying degrees of light also hide some of the
animals. The elephant, which is drawn a light gray, is hidden behind the trees whereas the
orange-yellow tigers can be seen protruding from the shrubbery.
Both Picasso and Rousseau have different styles and ways of using colors and lights
to express their feelings. Each artist has left a legacy for others to follow. However, many
Picasso had a larger impact on modern art revolutionized cubism, a technique that
numerous artists have used.