Transformation of Picasso
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Review of Picasso Poetry
Wolran Kim, Feb.2011
Was Picasso a poet? I asked this when I received Picasso's translated poetical works as a gift. Pablo Picasso (1881~1973) left three pieces of drama and more than four hundred poems. This anthology is translated from French and included many poems which he wrote from 1935—he first started writing poetry when he was 54 years old—to 1954. His poetry is as experimental as his painting and has only dates he wrote without even separate titles. There was an earnest handwritten entreaty on the inside cover of this collection from the person who sent me this gift: "After reading this book, please do not wear idealism again as luxury clothes." He must have hesitated when he sent this.
That's why I was more curious about the mysterious identity of this book. But, translated poetry always wears strange clothes over ornamented phrasing, and I am always uncomfortable or frustrated at the insurmountable gap between languages. At the moment of translation, poetry loses its own smell and texture. It changes to quite different clothes, just like Google's automatic translator, which is always topsy-turvy. However, Picasso's words, which were conspicuous as soon as I opened this book said; If you translate 'A dog chasing a hare through the wood' to a different language, you must say it like this, 'A white wooden table who put his four legs in sand, he became in a dying condition with fear as soon as realized foolish enough.' Amazing! I understood this strange logic. A poetry genre, which is the puzzle or amusements of the language implicated in nation's history and culture, cannot be translated a hundred percent; technically, all genres are like this.
Picasso, who was selected as the best artists of the 20th century from Britain's The Times, contributed greatly to modern art, devoting 80 years among 91 years of his life with numerous works of paintings, sculptures, drawings, pottery, and poetry. He founded Cubism with Braque, pioneered modern art, and also actively engaged in peace advocacy. He said that all the things in his poetry are in his pictures too; too many artists lost their poetry, but poetry was a really important element to him. Picasso was absorbed in poetry enough to say he threw away his paintings, sculptures, and prints when he first started writing poetry. The Korean translator said, if someone asks what death is, she would answer that it is going back to the world where there are no Picasso paintings and poetry. He called himself a genius and brushed full-sized wall canvases in his underwear if he got possessed by a spirit.
His poems are fraternal twins of his paintings. They are paintings drawn with words. Three-dimensional overlaps of the screen are between the lines of a plane, and a natural colored writing brush moves between each word. It is incomprehensible. But I feel like I am walking in a street where I have been once I read his poetry. I have often pointed out that my poems become increasingly difficult, avant-garde or ideological, but it was never intended. So Picasso's poems became more intimate to me. A teacher's poetry feels didactic and a doctor's poetry smells of disinfectant. That is not bad at all. To the contrary, this is a good thing—even for readers. Isn't that cool that Picasso's poetry smells of Picasso, and a pilot's poetry sounds of airplanes landing? “The sun drop falling on the tip of the knife”; “White blue white yellow and rose white of an apple green” (from English translation); Picasso, called ‘the assassin of painting’, must have shredded and stitched together poetry too.
It also can be seen the background of Guernica, his greatest master-piece. He wrote Guernica as prose, as if a monologue of a schizophrenic patient. His anger about the dictatorship of Franco expressed in food which no one can eat such as nail soup and steel vegetables. The root of all art is a same strand if I see painting and writing which have the same materials and themes. His poetry shows stream-of-consciousness without periods, and mixing capitals and small letters. Stream-of-consciousness was made by Andre Breton, who advocated the Surrealist movement in 1924. This concept is writing without thinking about the subject in advance, and for catching vividly unexpected involuntary thought rather than convey literal meanings. Isn't depth of art dependant on inspiration rather than knowledge?
Another Surrealist painter, Salvador Dali (1904~1989), who said he remembers when he was a fetus, also published a novel Hidden face. This is a love story about characters who braved death during the World Wars, and this book is reminiscent of his surreal pictures with characters portrayed grotesquely. This is the same literature as Picasso's poetry, which cannot be salvaged unless we indulge as if beyond death and consciousness, two untouchable states. It is wondrous that we meet great painters at the bookstore, not the museum. The Christian Science Monitor dealt with the need for a reassessment of Picasso's poems so as to be treated as the part of his art. And some people argue that he is the great Surrealist poet who broke the law of poetic words and the tradition of versification. I agree with that his poetry should be revaluated as an important achievement in 20th century of experimental poetry history.
“Life is short, art is long.” Hippocrates, who was a famous Greek physician, said this to his disciples. He meant do not waste life because there is too much learning to seek, but life is too short. By the way, the Greek word 'Techne' turned out false when interpreted to English, as the meaning 'technique' turned out again as 'art.' Whether medical art or art for art's sake, they have great deal of long, long lives. Because Picasso's writings are still worth appreciating. People say that his poetry is his transformation, but he never changed. Picasso is always Picasso.
=========================
Review of Picasso Poetry
Wolran Kim, Feb.2011
Was Picasso a poet? I asked this when I received Picasso's translated poetical works as a gift. Pablo Picasso (1881~1973) left three pieces of drama and more than four hundred poems. This anthology is translated from French and included many poems which he wrote from 1935—he first started writing poetry when he was 54 years old—to 1954. His poetry is as experimental as his painting and has only dates he wrote without even separate titles. There was an earnest handwritten entreaty on the inside cover of this collection from the person who sent me this gift: "After reading this book, please do not wear idealism again as luxury clothes." He must have hesitated when he sent this.
That's why I was more curious about the mysterious identity of this book. But, translated poetry always wears strange clothes over ornamented phrasing, and I am always uncomfortable or frustrated at the insurmountable gap between languages. At the moment of translation, poetry loses its own smell and texture. It changes to quite different clothes, just like Google's automatic translator, which is always topsy-turvy. However, Picasso's words, which were conspicuous as soon as I opened this book said; If you translate 'A dog chasing a hare through the wood' to a different language, you must say it like this, 'A white wooden table who put his four legs in sand, he became in a dying condition with fear as soon as realized foolish enough.' Amazing! I understood this strange logic. A poetry genre, which is the puzzle or amusements of the language implicated in nation's history and culture, cannot be translated a hundred percent; technically, all genres are like this.
Picasso, who was selected as the best artists of the 20th century from Britain's The Times, contributed greatly to modern art, devoting 80 years among 91 years of his life with numerous works of paintings, sculptures, drawings, pottery, and poetry. He founded Cubism with Braque, pioneered modern art, and also actively engaged in peace advocacy. He said that all the things in his poetry are in his pictures too; too many artists lost their poetry, but poetry was a really important element to him. Picasso was absorbed in poetry enough to say he threw away his paintings, sculptures, and prints when he first started writing poetry. The Korean translator said, if someone asks what death is, she would answer that it is going back to the world where there are no Picasso paintings and poetry. He called himself a genius and brushed full-sized wall canvases in his underwear if he got possessed by a spirit.
His poems are fraternal twins of his paintings. They are paintings drawn with words. Three-dimensional overlaps of the screen are between the lines of a plane, and a natural colored writing brush moves between each word. It is incomprehensible. But I feel like I am walking in a street where I have been once I read his poetry. I have often pointed out that my poems become increasingly difficult, avant-garde or ideological, but it was never intended. So Picasso's poems became more intimate to me. A teacher's poetry feels didactic and a doctor's poetry smells of disinfectant. That is not bad at all. To the contrary, this is a good thing—even for readers. Isn't that cool that Picasso's poetry smells of Picasso, and a pilot's poetry sounds of airplanes landing? “The sun drop falling on the tip of the knife”; “White blue white yellow and rose white of an apple green” (from English translation); Picasso, called ‘the assassin of painting’, must have shredded and stitched together poetry too.
It also can be seen the background of Guernica, his greatest master-piece. He wrote Guernica as prose, as if a monologue of a schizophrenic patient. His anger about the dictatorship of Franco expressed in food which no one can eat such as nail soup and steel vegetables. The root of all art is a same strand if I see painting and writing which have the same materials and themes. His poetry shows stream-of-consciousness without periods, and mixing capitals and small letters. Stream-of-consciousness was made by Andre Breton, who advocated the Surrealist movement in 1924. This concept is writing without thinking about the subject in advance, and for catching vividly unexpected involuntary thought rather than convey literal meanings. Isn't depth of art dependant on inspiration rather than knowledge?
Another Surrealist painter, Salvador Dali (1904~1989), who said he remembers when he was a fetus, also published a novel Hidden face. This is a love story about characters who braved death during the World Wars, and this book is reminiscent of his surreal pictures with characters portrayed grotesquely. This is the same literature as Picasso's poetry, which cannot be salvaged unless we indulge as if beyond death and consciousness, two untouchable states. It is wondrous that we meet great painters at the bookstore, not the museum. The Christian Science Monitor dealt with the need for a reassessment of Picasso's poems so as to be treated as the part of his art. And some people argue that he is the great Surrealist poet who broke the law of poetic words and the tradition of versification. I agree with that his poetry should be revaluated as an important achievement in 20th century of experimental poetry history.
“Life is short, art is long.” Hippocrates, who was a famous Greek physician, said this to his disciples. He meant do not waste life because there is too much learning to seek, but life is too short. By the way, the Greek word 'Techne' turned out false when interpreted to English, as the meaning 'technique' turned out again as 'art.' Whether medical art or art for art's sake, they have great deal of long, long lives. Because Picasso's writings are still worth appreciating. People say that his poetry is his transformation, but he never changed. Picasso is always Picasso.