The Mirror and the Mask; Portraiture in the Age of Picasso

by Paloma Alarcó and Malcolm Warner; With essays by Francisco Calvo Serraller, John

• ISBN13: 9780300122510
• ISBN10: 0300122519
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2007-05-28
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Portraiture is the unexpected survivor of the modern movement. Even as photography took over the role of recording likenessand artists questioned the representational basis of artalmost all the most important artists of the 20th century experimented with portraiture, and many made it a central feature of their work. As the commissioned portrait became more the province of specialists working in conservative styles, avant-garde portraiture became an affair between artists, their friends, andwith the proliferation of self-portraitstheir own selves. Focusing on avant-garde European paintings and sculpture from the 1890s to the 1980s, The Mirror and the Mask: Portraiture in the Age of Picasso shows the fascinating transformations that portraiture underwent as a flourishing, international phenomenon of the age. Through a spectacular panorama of late 19th- and 20th-century portraits, and using Picasso's stylistic evolution as a constant point of reference, the book explores how the genre developed in response to artistic movements and great historical events. It features more than 100 paintings and sculptures by artists including Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Kokoschka, Beckmann, Soutine, Dubuffet, Bacon, and Freud.

Table of Contents

The Spirit Behind the Mask	p. 3
Portraits About Portraiture	p. 11
The Mask As Image and Strategy	p. 25
"A Name, a Wretched Picture & Worse Bust": From Picasso's Stalin to Warhol's Mao	p. 37
The Mirror & the Mask: The Exhibition	p. 45
Before the Mirror	p. 47
Gesture and Expression	p. 61
Modern Color	p. 89
Mask of the Primitive	p. 111
The Mirror Broken	p. 143
A Portrait of Society	p. 161
Dream and Nightmare	p. 203
Metaphorical Identities	p. 227
The Human Clay	p. 275
Mirrored Images	p. 297
Appendix
List of Works	p. 319
Bibliography	p. 327
Index of Names	p. 335
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