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Art is one of the amazing phenomena that known no time boundaries. Though an epoch may be gone, the artworks that it left as a heritage still allow taking a closer look at the aesthetics and philosophy of the era was like. More importantly, art often serves as the link between several different tie periods. Though the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a fresco created by Picasso, was created in an entirely different epoch than Masaccio’s Tribute Money was, the two artworks still share a range of stylistic, compositional and conceptual similarities, which can be explained by the approaches that the two artists adopted, especially the use of perspective and color.
Comparing the two artworks, one must mention the color cast among the key similarities. Indeed, though entirely different from a stylistic pint of view, the pictures share a range of similarities in the choice of colors. Both Masaccio and Picasso choose a palette that is very rich in colors, thus, allowing for their artworks to contain a range of social innuendoes. For example, both artists tend to use red as the symbol of peril and tension. The contrast of blue and red, which can also be noticed very easily in both pictures, seems to be the key tool for conveying the clash of the good (Christian virtues and good morals) and the evil (greediness, sin and the collapse of the world at the threshold of the WWI) in the pictures.
The use of light and shadow also plays a major role in Masaccio’s work, yet is downplayed considerably in Picasso’s creation. While in Masaccio’s fresco, a careful use of shadows helps outline the key characters, with the tax collector, as an obvious antagonist, being put into the shadow, Picasso prefers to put the same emphasis on every single character that he depicts in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Thus, the function of these characters can be defined: whereas Masaccio tries to outline the personality and individual role of the Biblical characters, the “mademoiselles” in Picasso’s picture are supposed to be an abstract representation of the epoch.
Another detail that the two pictures have in common, the use of perspective should be brought up. Both having the basis of a two-dimensional picture plane, the artworks feature the method that was innovative in Masaccio’s time period, yet had been done to death by the time that Picasso used it. The clichéd use of perspective can be interpreted as the means to convey the overall tiredness that the entire pre-WWI epoch was shot through.
These similarities are especially peculiar in the light of the fact that one of the artists became worldly renowned, even though it happened only after his death, yet the other one, Masaccio, never actually got as famous as Picasso. While Masaccio’s works have become admittedly well known over the past few decades, it is quite doubtful that his name will ring any bells in an average person, unlike Picasso’s name will (Modernism, n. d.).
The same can be said about the historical context of the works. It is especially hard to compare the two works, seeing how both must be judged on their own merits, each representing a specific idea, which pertains to a specific time and the issues that the society was facing at that exact time period. For example, Masaccio’s Tribute Money obviously refers to the reinforcement of the Christian religion and enhancement of Christian values and morals among the members of the society (Italian art in the XV century, n. d., para. 3). Picasso’s work, on the contrary, is filled with the pain and anguish that the humankind in general and Italy tasted together with the bitter realization of the economic downfall and the political strain (Gavronsky, 2001).
Though Les Demoiselles d’Avignon emerged in 1907, therefore, preceding the WWI, it was still created in the era when the states of the world were about to clash in a confrontation; thus, the emotional strain and the decomposition of the society with its shallow morals and vapid leaders was expressed in the art. Compared to the dark message of Picasso’s creation, even some of the most sinister elements of Masaccio’s fresco, such as the face of the tax collector, seem preaching. Nevertheless, both pictures render some of the most topical societal issues, such as greed, represented by a face of the tax collector in Masaccio’s work and the weird, mask-like faces of the “Demoiselles of Avignon.”
Both Picasso and Masaccio had a range of imitators and followers in the past, and they still have them in present days. There is no need to stress the fact that Picasso has inspired such artists of the XXI century as David Hockney, Ben Nicholson and Roy Lichtenstein (Events: New mima exhibitions, n. d.). Masaccio, in his turn, has influenced Michelangelo and Raphael (Vasari & Lavin, 2012).
Despite the seeming lack of common points of contact for the Tribute Money and the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the two pictures display the same approach towards perspective, as well as show a very similar choice of colors and a similar line work. These obvious common elements are quite surprising to see in the artworks of Picasso and Masaccio, seeing how the artists lived and worked in entirely different eras and were inspired by completely different issues.
Reference List
Events: New mima exhibitions (n. d.). Web.
Gavronsky, S. (2001). Aragon: Politics and Picasso. Romantic review, 92(1/2), 47. Web.
Italian art in the XV century (n. d.). Web.
Modernism (n. d.). Web.
Vasari, G. & Lavin, M. A. (2012). Vasari’s lives of the artists: Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian. Mineola, NY: Courier Dover Publications. Web.
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