Pinnacles of creativity anchored in appreciation

Pablo Picasso once said: “When [Henri] Matisse dies, [Marc] Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour is.''

Chagall held Picasso's work in almost equal esteem although the 20th century greats never spoke to each other after an argument in 1954.

At Picasso-Chagall: The Reconciliation, under way at the Opera Gallery in Dubai, some works of these stalwarts of colour come together in conversation with a fresh venue and viewers.

“Many of the most significant innovations in 20th-century painting and sculpture originated from Picasso and Chagall. This exhibition celebrates their complex relationship,'' says Melanie Taylor, an art expert at the Opera Gallery.

“This is the first time in Dubai these masters are being shown in a joint exhibition,'' Taylor says.

Picasso's most celebrated works, including the oil on canvas Nature Morte au Poron (1948), Mosquetaire (1967) and Le Porro (1957), are on display.

Picasso exhibits both an attachment to the past and an innovating spirit, spontaneity and a sense of justice. His talent, imagination and vitality add up to an artistic temperament that can be called genius.

Chagall was distinguished for his surrealistic inventiveness. His works treated subjects in a vein of humour and fantasy that drew on the resources of the unconscious. His personal and unique imagery is often suffused with exquisite poetic inspiration.

He undertook more than 50 enormous projects, including the stained-glass pieces in the cathedral in Metz, the UN headquarters in New York and a mural painting at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

Picasso's works from 1901 may be classified into periods, marked by different influences and personal interests.

From 1901 to 1904 — the Blue Period — Picasso's paintings were melancholy in mood and subject matter, flat of form and strong contour, nearly monochromatic and of intense blue. In some of these works, the Mannerist influence of El Greco is easily visible.

The Rose Period (1905-06) offers the same flat forms but with a softer contour, a more romantic mood and a delicate ink tonality that is often used with the blue of the earlier works.

In 1906 Picasso met Matisse, with whom he shared an interest in the works of Gauguin and Cézanne. At the time he was also influenced by African primitive carvings.

The result was the masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a huge painting, angularly distorted, with strong, barbaric forms that seem flat but are actually so shaded as to be three-dimensional.

Called Cubism by the critics, this style of using translucent, blocky planes led to Analytical Cubism practised by Braque and Picasso from 1909 to 1911.

In this form, familiar objects such as glasses and pitchers were broken down into geometric planes.

From about 1912 to 1915, the collage or paste-up method of Synthetic Cubism was developed, in which bits of cloth or paper were used to create an image.

From 1915 until 1936, Picasso painted in various Cubist manners, experimented with Surrealism and entered his Classical (sometimes called White) period in the early 1920s, producing sculptures tender in mood.

In the 1930s he worked in a Cubist style that was metamorphic in its visual approach. The tragic masterpiece Guernica (1937) is painted in this style.

The double portraits that first appeared in 1938 are a further evolution of this metamorphic style.

In 1948 Picasso returned to themes of women, children, animals and birds, painting in various manners synthesising all his previous styles.

He has also produced lithographs and etchings on classical and literary subjects, sculpture, murals, jewellery and ceramic works.

Picasso's palette is varied but at time, he limited himself to tones of black, as in Guernica, or to a favourite combination of black, white and shades of ochre.

Chagall's distinctive use of colour and form is derived partly from Russian Expressionism and was influenced decisively by French Cubism.

Crystallising his style early, as in Candles in the Dark (1908), he later developed subtle variations.

His numerous works represent vivid recollections of Russian-Jewish village scenes, as in I and the Village (1911, Museum of Modern Art, New York City), and incidents in his private life, as in the print series Mein Leben (My Life, 1922), in addition to treatments of Jewish subjects, of which The Praying Jew (1914, Art Institute of Chicago) is one. His works combine recollection with folklore and fantasy.

Biblical themes characterise a series of etchings executed between 1925 and 1939, and the 12 stained-glass windows in the Hadassah Hospital of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Centre in Occupied Jerusalem (1962).

Chagall executed many prints illustrating literary classics. A canvas completed in 1964 covers the ceiling of the Opera in Paris and two large murals (1966) hang in the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

Taylor, the art expert, said the pieces on display are also available for purchase. Their prices range from $50,000 to $8 million.

“People in Dubai are hungry for art-related events and want to see beautiful works of art. We are very pleased to provide them the opportunity to do so,'' she said.

Picasso-Chagall: The Reconciliation is on at the Opera Gallery, Dubai International Financial Centre, until April 2.