P
R
E
S
S
R
E
L
E
A
S
E
Picasso and Naples: Parade
Museum and Royal Wood of Capodimonte, Naples
Antiquarium, Pompeii Excavations
curated by Sylvain Bellenger and Luigi Gallo
8th April – 10th July 2017
In 2017 Naples and Pompeii will celebrate the centenary of Picasso’s visit to
Italy, which the artist undertook together with Jean Cocteau to work with the
Ballets Russes on Parade, a ballet that would premiere on stage in Paris in the May
of 1917, to an idea of the same Cocteau and to music by Erik Satie. During his visit
to our country, the artist came to Naples twice, between the March and April of
1917, and to Pompeii.
For the occasion, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Superintendency
Pompeii, the Museum and Royal Wood of Capodimonte and the Rome Opera
House, with the support of the Campania Region and the Donnaregina Regional
Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the regional Scabec company, and with the
production and organisation of Electa, will promote the exhibition Picasso and
Naples: Parade, which will be held at Capodimonte and Pompeii, and curated
by Sylvain Bellenger and Luigi Gallo.
13th March 1917
We are [Picasso, Sergej Diagilev and Massine] once again in Rome
after a trip to Naples, and from there to Pompeii by car. I do believe that
no city in all the world could please me more than Naples. The teeming
classical antiquity, brand new, in this Arab Montmartre, in this great
mess of a kermesse that never stops. Food, God and fornication, here
are the drives of this novel people. Vesuvius crafts all the clouds of the
world. The sea is dark blue. Hyacinths hurl themselves on the pavements
Jean Cocteau, Lettres à sa mère, I, 1898-1918, Paris, Gallimard, 1989
The exhibition will allow an emphasis on the importance of the direct meeting
of Picasso with antiquity at Pompeii, and above all with traditional Neapolitan
culture, in an entirely new dimension of Picassoan studies through some of its
greatest expressions - the Presepe, popular theatre and marionette theatre. The
combination of the ancient and the modern city seduced Picasso: one for its
antiquity in which history is lost in everyday life, the other for its vitality coloured
by dramatic hues.
With Parade, the cubist painter returns to his first source of inspiration tied to the
world of the circus, also renewing interest in the classic tradition, later recalled by
Cocteau in his “Call to Order”.
The works on display hail from different museums and private collections,
including the Musée National d’Art Moderne, the Centre Georges Pompidou,
the Musée Picasso Paris, the Museu Picasso Barcellona, la Fondation Pierre
Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, la Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris,
la Maison Jean Cocteau, Milly la Forêt, la Fundación Almine y Bernard RuizPicasso para el Arte (FABA), the Mart Museum of Modern and Contemporary
Art of Trento and Rovereto, and the Rome Opera House.
organizzazione
e comunicazione
Mostra realizzata nell’ambito del progetto “Itinerari del
Contemporaneo-Confronti” programmato e finanziato
dalla Regione Campania con i fondi POC 2014-2020
NAPOLI
The Royal Palace of Capodimonte will host the Parade curtain in her ballroom.
The largest work of Picasso, of utmost importance for modern art, will be
in Naples for the first time. A canvas of 17 metres wide by 10 metres high, kept
at the George Pompidou Centre of Paris but, due to its size, displayed only
on rare occasions - at the Brooklyn Museum (New York 1984); at Palazzo della
Gran Guardia (Verona 1990); at Palazzo Grassi (Venice 1998) and at the Pompidou
Centre of Metz (2012-2013). The work will be accompanied in the exhibition
by a wide selection of works by the Spanish painter: in addition to a unique set
of sketches from the Musée Picasso of Paris, which allows one to follow the artist’s
creative direction through the design of costumes for Parade, highlighting their
diverse cultural influences, the exhibition also encourages reflection on certain
subjects which would recur frequently in the work of Picasso - the artist’s stylistic
elements, such as still life, the figures of musicians and musical instruments, and
the mask of the Harlequin.
Indeed, works like the iconic Acrobat of 1930, whose inspiration comes from
the acrobats of Parade, allows one to also analyse the persistence of themes
in the works of Picasso.
To further investigate the relationship of Picasso with the theatre and Neapolitan
tradition, Capodimonte will also host the sketches produced by the artist for the
ballet Pulcinella (staged in 1920 in Paris with the music of Stravinsky and the
choreography of Massine) together with certain marionettes and puppets from
Neapolitan maschera from the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para
el Arte collection.
To consider the relationship between Picasso and the world of entertainment
- in particular that of cinematography - certain frames will be screened from films,
such as Le Mistère Picasso, directed by Henry-Georges Clouzot in 1956 and winner
of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, which shows the artist at the apex
of his creativity.
POMPEII
The Antiquarium of Pompei will welcome the ballet costumes designed
by the artist, who visited Pompeii in the March of 1917. To confirm the influence
of theatrical iconography on the art of Picasso and to celebrate his passion
for the maschera, the costumes will be compared alongside a collection
of African masks, along with a selection of archaeological finds from the site,
including a group of theatrical masks, for the most part never seen before
(antefixes, embossed plates, herms and statues). The innovative comparison
between the ancient references and arte nègre is underlined at Pompeii
by the magnificent sketch of the ‘poster painting of Cubism’ Les demoiselles
d’Avignon painted in 1907 and exhibited for the first time to great fanfare in 1916.
The theme of the mask, particularly in its role in dance which references old
African tradition, seeks to underline how Picasso analysed the reasoning over
a device which able to deeply explore identity: wearing one, in a literal or symbolic
sense, means to stop being oneself; while on the other hand, taking it off allows
the revelation of a psychological truth.
The image of Picasso, meditative as he lights his pipe, and Massine, leaning
on a large mask which functions as the mouth of a fountain, which is present
in the Antiquarium, was used to illustrate the program of Parade in Paris.
This Summer on the 27th, 28th and 29th July, the Large Theatre of Pompeii will host
two ballets with the choreography of Leonide Massine: Parade with music by Erik
Satie and Pulcinella with music by Stravinsky, both portrayed by prima ballerinas,
soloists and the corps de ballet of the Rome Opera House.
While the exhibition at Capodimonte reconstructs Picasso’s stay in Naples and
the Neapolitan influences upon the creation of the ballets Parade and Pulcinella,
Pompeii offers an evocation of the concept of the mask in the art of the Spanish
painter, who was accustomed to the masquerade and transformism, as his
depictions demonstrate, first with the Harlequin and then later the Minotaur.
The Teatro di San Carlo also commemorates the centenary of Picasso’s visit
to Naples, and participates in the initiatives following in the wake of the exhibition
of Parade at Capodimonte, screening on loop throughout the duration of the
exhibition (7th April - 10th July) on monitors located in the Foyer of Mirrors and
at Memus (Museum and Historical Archive of the Teatro di San Carlo), films of two
ballets produced at the Rome Opera House in 2007 for a Picasso themed evening
- Massine, which included Parade, a realistic ballet with music by Erik Satie and
Pulcinella with music by Igor Stravinsky. Costumes for the ballet Pulcinella,
to an original design by Picasso, will also be displayed alongside the monitors.
Thus, during the opening hours of the Theatre, all visitors who attend guided tours,
and all those who attend shows in the coming months will be able, in the foyer,
to remember the theatrical impact of Picasso as a theatrical set and costume
designer, in two masterpieces in the history of dance.
The exhibition Picasso and Naples. Parade in Naples and Pompeii is the inaugural
event of the Picasso-Mediterranean initiative of the Musée national
Picasso-Paris, an international cultural event which will take place from the
Spring of 2017 until the Spring of 2019. More than sixty institutions from 8 counties
have developed various exhibition projects on the “stubbornly Mediterranean”
work of Pablo Picasso.
Images for the press and the list of works on display can be downloaded
from the following link:
www.electa.it/ufficio-stampa/picasso-napoli-parade
Password: PICASSOPARADE
T
H
E
E
X
H
I
B
I
T
I
O
N
Parade and Europe in the 1910s
Cosmopolitan Europe in the years before World War I, freed from
nineteenth-century puritanism, was electrified by the myth of modernity.
Futurists, Cubists and Supremacists created the concept of the avantgarde. Disruptive energies sought to anticipate the times, even at the cost
of incomprehension. And sure enough, the subject of Parade rested on a
misunderstanding. Devised by Jean Cocteau, the ballet depicts a circus parade,
intended to publicize the spectacle, but mistaken for the spectacle itself.
This dreamlike misconception embodied the basic principle of Surrealism,
a term coined by Apollinaire to describe Parade.
The idea for the ballet was conceived in Paris in 1916, through collaboration
between Cocteau, Picasso, already the most famous avant-garde artist, Sergej
Djagilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, the choreographer Léonide Massine
and the composer Erik Satie. Misia Sert, the undisputed muse of the legendary
years of the Parisian avant-garde, brought together the artists involved
in Parade. On May 30, Misia took Cocteau to hear Satie at a musical evening
organized by Picasso and Matisse. Misia had already spoken to Satie about
a composition for the Ballets Russes. A week later, Djagilev went to see Picasso
in his studio.
On August 24 Cocteau persuaded Picasso to embark on the adventure of Parade.
The two friends called on Gertrude Stein to ironically announce they were going
on their honeymoon to Italy. On February 17, 1917, they set off for Rome.
The trip lasted two months, but it was during the two weeks in Naples, between
March and April, that the metamorphosis of the ballet took place. It was no longer
only intended to showcase Cubism, but to mediate between avant-garde painting
and the various influences derived from the classical art that they had seen
in Pompeii, as well as popular Neapolitan tradition.
Naples, the city of living arts: nativity scenes
and the Commedia dell’Arte
“Food, God and fornication, these are the motives of this romantic people,”
Jean Cocteau wrote of the Neapolitans in a letter in 1917.
Picasso was likewise fascinated by the city and its culture, which united the
sacred and the profane. His interest in the art of the nativity scene (presepio)
and the popular theatre was highly significant.
The collection of the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz Picasso para el Arte,
which preserves a part of Picasso’s legacy, contains three figures from nativity
scenes, probably acquired during his stay in Naples. Picasso and his traveling
companions had admired the collections in the Museo di San Martino, which
has some extraordinary examples of presepi.
The figures of the three shepherds suggest that the artist was attracted by these
compositions.
Picasso seems to have been influenced by the theatricality of the nativities and
the use of simple materials for the scenes, such as wood, stucco, cork and paper,
materials he was familiar with because he used them in his early Cubist phase.
The column and arch, painted in the stage curtain for Parade seem to be made
from them.
Eighteenth-century nativities and early twentieth-century scenes, part of the
permanent collection of the Museo di Capodimonte, constituted imaginative
worlds that fascinated Picasso. They included a Nativity with a Glory of Angels,
with figures by Giuseppe Sammartino and Salvatore Franco, and an Oriental Scene
with an Elephant attributed to the sculptor Giuseppe Gori. In Naples Picasso
also discovered the popular theatre, with the characters of the Commedia
dell’Arte, Pulcinella in particular.
Two reproductions of this figure can be seen in a 1920 photo with his wife Olga
at the piano in the intimacy of their apartment on Rue La Boétie.
Marionettes and Puppets by Picasso and Depero
In Naples, puppet and marionette theaters were common, in every neighborhood
there were several street theaters, and actual theaters. The stories were simple
ranging from the tales of the paladins of France to the “guappi” (napolitain
underworld characters) and stories of Pulcinella. As with the twodimensional
stage curtain for Parade, in the puppet theaters there were several backdrops
with drapes, which defined the stage space.
Picasso’s interest in puppetry is shown by two Sicilian marionettes in the
collection of the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, which
he presumably acquired while traveling in Italy in 1917.
The performance of a marionette, an inanimate object that comes to life, was
a focus of early experiments in avant-garde theater. In Depero’s plans for the
Balli plastici, conceived in 1917-18 in collaboration with the Swiss poet Gilbert
Clavel, the stylistic reasoning was based on a disruptive principle, which was
also explored in the cinema in the years to come by Charlie Chaplin.
Picasso and Italian art
Picasso’s trip to Italy in 1917 enabled him to explore varied cultural traditions.
A visit to Pompeii was a must. There Jean Cocteau snapped some photographs
of Picasso and Léonide Massine. In the ancient city, Picasso plucked a bay leaf and
wrote a dedication to his friend Apollinaire, a testament to the bond of friendship
woven out of complex cultural references. If the visit to Pompeii was the starting
point for his reflections on antiquity that were to influence his neoclassical period
a few years later, it should be remembered that he was already aware
of the extraordinary quality of ancient painting through the medium of photography.
The inspiration of Pompeii emerges clearly from a comparison between
The Two Brothers (1906) and the fresco of Theseus and the Minotaur in the Museo
Archeologico of Naples. Picasso drew on the ancient wall painting, repeating its
composition (with the circus drum taking the place of the Minotaur’s lifeless body),
the sculptural pose of the frontal nude, and the tactile and earthy coloring.
Further evidence of the study of the artistic sources of the past appears in the
preparatory drawings for a Crucifixion, which the painter never continued, returning
to the subject only in 1930. It was the first time that Picasso had dealt directly with
a religious subject, inspired as much by seventeenth-century Spanish painting
as Italian Renaissance and Mannerist art. In the figures of the knights with lances
similarities can be traced with the studies for the managers in Parade.
Harlequin and Pulcinella
Picasso devoted a close analysis to the figure of Pulcinella, which for some
years became an alter ego for Harlequin, a character with whom the painter loved
to identify himself. He portrayed the dancer Léonide Massine in the traditional
checkered costume in 1917 in the beautiful painting presented here, now in the
Museu Picasso in Barcelona. In the years immediately after his trip to Naples,
the two Harlequin and Pulcinella often appear together.
This is significant: his fascination with the two sides of the enigmatic figure of
Harlequin was associated with the ironic and ambiguous character of Pulcinella.
The two traditional figures represented the balance between Apollonian
and Dionysian, in keeping with a tradition of Hermetic philosophy in the new
interpretation offered by Nietzsche and widespread in Parisian art circles.
Complementary figures, Harlequin, a symbol of the Venetian Commedia dell’Arte,
embodied solar and invincible qualities, while the Neapolitan Pulcinella expressed
a lunar and burlesque character. It should be emphasized that the costume that
the artist created for the ballet heightened the character’s ambiguity by giving him
a disquieting grin.
Fascinated by this figure, he reinterpreted the story of Pulcinella for the
eponymous ballet, with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Massine.
Staged successfully on May 15, 1920, Pulcinella helped perpetuate the myth
of Naples in Europe during the roaring years between the wars.
Picasso and set design
The years between the productions of Parade and Mercure, respectively 1917
and 1924, enclosed the span of time in which Picasso continued to work for
Djagilev’s Ballets Russes. He created curtains, costumes and sets for the
company.
Parade introduced Picasso, already familiar with the circus, to ballet, which he
turned into a joyous manifesto of the contemporary world.
In the program notes, Apollinaire pointed out that “the link between costume
design and choreography has given rise to a certain surrealism as an expression
of the new spirit and will transform the arts into universal joy.”
For each production Picasso devised a different aesthetic. Parade (1917) combined
the power of Cubist costumes and sets with a lyrical classical evocation of the
stage curtain, while Tricorne (1919) and Quadro Flamenco (1921) drew on a timeless
and iconic image of Spain, with curtains inspired by bullfighting. Pulcinella (1920)
was the apotheosis of classicism, while in the later Mercure (1924), a series of
tableaux with stories of the gods, Picasso restated his modernist credentials with
an almost abstract style, closely related to contemporary Surrealist experiments.
It is interesting to see how prominent the memory of Naples is in the set designs
for Parade: a comparison with the watercolor drawing Siloca, in which Cocteau
depicted the city dominated by a smoking volcano, reveals similarities with the
pyramid that evokes the circus tent designed by Picasso in the sketch exhibited
here.
Again in Pulcinella, the amorous adventures of the Neapolitan character are set
in front of an elaborate design dominated by Vesuvius.
While in the early sketches, Picasso seems to refer to the Teatro San Carlo,
the artist then developed a treatment of space reflecting the geometric forms
of Cubism, with cold tones evoking moonlight on the sea and the volcano in the
background, while the stage was painted white.
Stage curtain for Parade between classicism and popular art
For Parade Picasso created the monumental stage curtain marked, in its tactile
conception and complex symbolic interpretation, a break with the Cubist
experiments, characteristic of much of the production. The huge canvas has
stylistic affinities with popular themes of the Neapolitan figurative tradition, drawn
from Achille Vianelli’s engravings in Scenes of Popular Life in Naples, published
in 1831, and with the circus imagery that nurtured his art from the first decade
of the century. To these were added the symbols inherited from classical and
Renaissance iconography, like the winged horse, the starry globe and the ladder.
A complex work, of crucial importance to twentieth-century art, the stage curtain
evoke the world of acrobats together with memories of the trip to Italy by a joyful
company of artists. The figures are actual portraits of his travelling companions.
A rare photograph by Henry B. Lachman portrayed Picasso painting the curtain
assisted by Carlo Socrate and others.
Instruments and musicians: a stylistic feature of Picasso’s work
The stage curtain also lends itself to a reflection on some subjects recurrent
in Picasso’s work, true stylistic features such as still-life and music.
The pictorial image of the table with the big coffee pot was repeatedly depicted
over the years; Depero also seems to have been inspired by Picasso in the table
with a glass and bottle in the Portrait of Clavel, painted in 1917.
However, it is the figure of the guitarist that provides a clue to the persistence
of certain iconographic motifs. Already in his years of militant Cubism,
Picasso repeatedly depicted musical instruments: singly, as in the magnificent
I Love Eva (1913), dedicated to his mistress Eva Guel, who died prematurely in 1915,
or paired, as the picture now in the collection of the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves
Saint Laurent, painted in 1914. The watercolor dating from 1919, representing a
still-life in front of the window of his home at Saint-Raphaël, documents the artist’s
elaboration of this idea, also evident in the edgy pen drawing of two musicians
made in the same year for the cover of the score of Stravinsky’s Ragtime.
In the late Guitarist (Room 3), painted a year before his death in 1972, Picasso
returned to the figure of the musician in the bullfighter suit that appeared in
the stage curtain. This is a testament to his continuous effort to reinterpret his
sources, including personal memories, so continually renewing his figurative
vocabulary. The film Le Mystère Picasso, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
in 1956, won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It showed him in the fervor
of his creative activity. An excerpt from a documetary realised by Lucaino Emmer
in 1954, depicts Picasso fashioning a dove in ceramic.
Subject and reception of the ballet
The program notes of the premiere of Parade, on May 18, 1917, at the Théâtre
du Châtelet, provide a summary of the subject of the ballet, a confusion of reality
and unreality devised by the young poet Jean Cocteau.
“The setting represents the buildings of Paris one Sunday. A traveling circus.
Three musichall acts parade through the town. A Chinese magician, an American
Girl, two acrobats and three managers publicize the show. In their horrible
language they say that the crowd is foolishly mistaking the parade with the show
itself and try to get them to understand. No one is convinced. After the final
number, the extreme effort of the managers. The Chinese, the acrobats and
the American girl leave the empty theater. Seeing the failure of the managers,
they try to show off their skills. But it is too late.”
The theme centers on misunderstanding and surprise, the audience’s astonishment
at the contrast between the classical painting of the curtain and the shock of the
Cubist ballet. Satie’s noisy score, with the clicking of a typewriter and pistol shots,
the set design and costumes by Picasso, and the bizarre choreography by Massine
baffled the audience, who began protesting before the end of the performance.
The description of the premiere by the journalist Ilya Ehrenburg is emblematic:
“A horse came out on stage wearing a Cubist mask and started performing circus
tricks – it knelt, danced and bowed. The public, believing the dancers were making
fun of them for their protests, completely lost their heads and shouted “Death
to the Russians! Picasso’s a Boche! The Russians are Boches.”
Costumes for Parade
A unique collection of sketches from the Musée Picasso in Paris enables us to
follow the artist’s creative path in designing the costumes for Parade and reveals
the various cultural influences at work.
The figures of the American manager and the French manager, with their
skyscrapers and clouds, are still clearly indebted to Cubism. The intellectual
deconstruction of the human figures drew on works that Picasso had produced
in the years immediately before, such as Homme à la pipe (1914). The sketches show
the gradual dismemberment of the figures of the sandwich men, astride on pigs,
they become veritable monuments of Synthetic Cubism.
The technical contribution of Fortunato Depero, who designed puppets and
children’s toys, contributed substantially to the creation of the costumes.
African art is to be found in the head of the amusing horse with its double jointed
body. The two acrobats, a man and a woman, with their gauzy tights patterned
by blue clouds, reminiscent of the costumes created by Léon Bakst, combined
the refinement of French Symbolism with the Russian popular tradition.
It should be noted that the contorted figure returned in Picasso’s painting
of The Blue Acrobat (1930).
For the American girl, with an allusion to the sexual freedom of the new continent,
Picasso imagined a costume with white ruffles with numbers and ribbons, replaced
at the last moment by a sailor dress bought at a department store. Only the big bow
on her head remained from the original sketch.
The Chinaman was dressed in a garment with marked color contrasts, alluding
to an Orientalism reviewed in a Futuristic key, together with a reference to the work
of Matisse, long his friend and rival.
The photographs of the performers in their costumes, taken by Henry B. Lachman
probably before the ballet premiered on May 18, 1917, also bore witness to the
acknowledged importance of the collaboration between Picasso and the company
of the Ballets Russes.
Picasso: the mask and costumes for Parade
Among the important twentieth-century artists who went to Pompeii, Pablo
Picasso visited the ancient Vesuvian city in March 1917. The most iconic painter
of the twentieth century, he traveled to Pompeii in the company of Jean Cocteau,
Sergei Djagilev and the choreographer Leonide Massine, with whom he was
working on the production of the ballet Parade, with music by Erik Satie.
In a photo taken by Cocteau, used to illustrate the program in Paris, Picasso
appears meditatively lighting his pipe, seated with Massine on a fountain
in Via Stabiana, decorated with a theatrical mask. This comic mask, with its high
hairstyle, suggests to the modern viewer the pervasiveness of this iconographic
image in the decorations of the city.
The mask in contemporary culture has acquired a metaphorical value, alien
to its ancient significance. In the Roman world the term for a mask was persona
(from personare, to resound), a word semantically contrasting with the individual’s
true face, termed facies or vultus. Etymologically the word mask derives from
the late ancient màsca, indicating a dead person or demon.
Though with the appropriate distinctions, the mask in the African tradition
is an object related to the spiritual world, used in sacred ceremonies.
Picasso was attracted by the mask’s transformative power, and in his work
as a designer of costumes for the Ballets Russes, this theme emerged strongly.
The exhibition housed in the premises of the Antiquario is intended to show how
Picasso was inspired in the designs of the theatrical costumes for Parade
by references to antiquity and l’art nègre. The latter had already influenced
Cubism’s manifesto painting, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, painted in 1907
and exhibited for the first time in 1916, when it caused a stir.
A sketch now in the Musée Picasso Paris testifies to this fascination.
The original comparison is borne out by an exceptional collection of African
and classical masks, the latter preserved in the deposits of the Superintendency
and presented to the public here for the first time. These are two pantomime masks,
found in the temple of Apollo, with others in terracotta and marble, placed in
gardens or used as antefixes decorating private and public spaces, shops
and tabernae.
Theme and characters of Parade
The program notes of the premiere of Parade, on May 18, 1917, at the Théâtre
du Châtelet, gave a summary up the subject of the ballet, a confusion of reality
and unreality devised by the young poet Jean Cocteau. “The setting represents
the buildings of Paris one Sunday. A traveling circus. Three music-hall acts parade
through the town. A Chinese magician, an American Girl, two acrobats and three
managers publicize the show. In their horrible language they say that the crowd is
foolishly mistaking the parade with the show itself and try to get them
to understand.
No one is convinced. After the final number, the extreme effort of the managers.
The Chinese, the acrobats and the American girl leave the empty theater. Seeing
the failure of the managers, they try to show off their skills. But it is too late.”
The costumes of the seven characters, on loan from the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome,
reveal varied influences: the figures of the American manager and the French
manager, with their skyscrapers and clouds, clearly reveal a debt to Cubism.
Fortunato Depero made a substantial contribution to the creation of the costumes.
African art is to be found in the amusing horse’s head with its double jointed body.
The two acrobats, a man and a woman, with their flimsy tights patterned with
blue clouds, combine the refinement of French Symbolism with the Russian folk
tradition. For the American girl, an allusion to the freedom and boldness of the new
continent, Picasso imagined a costume with white ruffles with numbers
and ribbons, replaced at the last moment by a sailor’s suit bought from
a department store.
Only the big bow on the head remains from the original sketch.
The Chinese man in a garment with marked color contrasts alludes to an
Orientalism revised in a Futuristic key, drawing on the work of Matisse, long
Picasso’s friend and rival. The video of the performance was a production
at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome presented in 2008.
Picasso in Pompeii
In one of the three photographs taken by Cocteau, showing the painter at the
excavations, we see him in the garden of the House of Marcus Lucretius. Picasso
is sitting in front of the fountain, very elegant, wearing a jacket and black waistcoat,
with Leonide Massin beside him. It was March 11, 1917. The painter was 36 years
old. He had come to Pompeii early in the morning by car from Naples. Cocteau
described the drive in a letter to his mother: “Vesuvius manufactures all the clouds
in the world.
The sea is dark blue. It throws hyacinths on the sidewalks. (...) Pompeii did not
surprise me. I came straight to my house.
I had waited a thousand years without daring to return to see its poor ruins.” The
ancient Vesuvian city was an unprecedented opportunity for Picasso: the view of a
place that kindled his enthusiasm for antiquity, in which the eternal had overtones
of myth. On display are the refined artifacts visible in the photograph (herms
and statues of Dionysian subjects). The Picasso celebration concluded with the
performance in the Teatro Grande of ballets with sets and costumes by the painter
for Parade and Pulcinella, in honor of the most representative stock figure
of Neapolitan culture, its origins dating from the Atellan comedy in the fourth
century BC.
Celebrating the centenary of Pablo Picasso’s journey for the Superintendency
of Pompeii means paying homage to the modern history of the archaeological site,
whose vision was of great importance to the classical breakthrough in the Spanish
painter’s work in the 1920s. The series of commemorative events promoted in
collaboration with the Museo di Capodimonte, where the stage curtain designed
for Parade is presented with a monographic exhibition, and with the Teatro
dell’Opera in Rome, also testify to the lively and fruitful cooperation between
different cultural institutions.
D
A
T
A
S
H
E
E
T
Title
Picasso and Naples: Parade
Locations
Museum and Royal Wood of
Capodimonte, via Miano 2 Naples
Antiquarium, Pompeii Excavations
Dates of Opening to the Public
8th April – 10th July 2017
Curated by
Sylvain Bellenger and Luigi Gallo
Promoted by
Superintendency of Pompeii
Museum and Royal Wood
of Capodimonte
Rome Opera House
With the support of
Campania Region
through the Donnaregina Regional
Foundation for Contemporary Arts
and the regional Scabec company
Tickets
Museum and Royal Wood of
Capodimonte, Naples
standard exhibition 10 euro
reduced exhibition 8 euro
exhibition + museum 12 euro
Antiquarium, Excavations of Pompeii
from the 12th of April, Pompeii
excavations +exhibitions
( Picasso e Napoli: Parade; Pompei
e i Greci )
standard: 13 euro
(11 euro Pompei entrance + 2 euro
surcharge exhibitions)
reduced: 7,50 euro
(5,50 euro Pompei entrance + 2 euro
surcharge exhibitions)
cumulative ticket: 22 euro(20 euro
entrance Pompei plus 2 others site
+ 2 euro surcharge exhibitions)
Website
www.mostrapicassoparade.it
Press Office
Electa
Ilaria Maggi
[email protected]
T. +39 02 71046250
As part of the initiative of
Picasso Mediterraneo del Musée
National Picasso-Paris
communcations manager
Monica Brognoli
[email protected]
T. +39 02 71046456
Organisation and Communication
Electa
Superintendency of Pompeii
Marella Brunetto
Lara Anniboletti
[email protected]
T. +39 081 8575327
#picassoparade