With the arrival of September and with the evenings drawing in, it’s apparent that summer is drawing to a close. Although the arrival of a new season is always exciting, for those of us holding onto the last of the summer sun, we have the perfect summertime Picasso on our walls.
Still Life is one of the oldest genres in Western art. Few artists however have used it to communicate as much as the Dutch Masters of the seventeenth century. Their tables might be crowded with flowers, fruit and silverware, but these objects aren’t merely decoration; they serve as symbols, enabling communication through the canvas. A snuffed-out candle or a piece of fruit beginning to decay for example, could serve as a memento mori. Still life was an invitation to look beyond what was immediately in front of us.
Pablo Picasso, Nature morte à la pastèque, 1962
Picasso however, turns this tradition on its head. Nature Morte à la Pastèque (1962), may be a still life by name, but it feels anything but still. At first glance, the subject is wonderfully simple, a watermelon, sliced open, with the sun stretching its rays across the scene, and a bunch of cherries in the foreground. Yet in Picasso’s hands, and with a nod to his cubist beginnings, a simple depiction of some very familiar fruits becomes something dynamic, playful and almost entirely new.
Perhaps what makes this work so fitting as we reach the end of summer, is that, unlike the Dutch who may have asked us to contemplate how quickly beauty fades, Picasso seems to suggest something rather different: that the fleeting nature of life is what makes it so worth living!
So, as we reluctantly say goodbye to long evenings and summer sun, Picasso offers us a final taste of the season, and a celebration of a summer we are all able to enjoy.
