WI No Picasso?

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
Stolengood said:
If the Whites win the Russian Revolution, I'm guessing Vertov flees to Western Europe, works with his brother more... and, possibly, Kaufman never gets to meet Vigo.
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Certainly works if the TTL sees the Whites win the Russian Civil War... though I'm still unsure you even need political changes that drastic. Still, for now since I'm drawn to the idea of artists like Vertov, Malevich, and others coming west, I suppose we can run with it for now...
 

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
Stolengood said:
How less drastic do you think they could be, then?
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Well, hypothetically the Soviet state could be largely the same, aside from propaganda aesthetics. For example, getting Vertov to go west may not be that much of a challenge -- his brothers were in Western Europe during the Civil War; he might have decided to join them if his propaganda work didn't turn out. Of course, that's just one Russian -- doesn't include Malevich, et el...
 

The Piano

I'm still reading through this thread but there are a few things I would like to point out.


  • Even though Les Demoiselles d'Avignon wasn't displayed publicly until later, it wasn't entirely unknown to the art world. Artists (especially artists whose work was less conventional and therefore harder to get into exhibitions) sometimes showed their work in their studios by inviting friends over, and in some cases this created a sort of ripple effect in art communities that weren't really that huge. I remember reading that it came at a time when Picasso and Matisse were essentially rivals and this only served to fuel it. Not to mention that Braque also saw the work, among others. In the end, I feel like the painting did have some impact in the art world even before being publicly displayed, even if it was more of a behind-the-scenes role and not something that directly reached the public at large.



  • As to the influence of African art, no Demoiselles probably doesn't mean that much. There were already artists exploring African art by that point and others ended up exploring it too in a different direction. If you wanted to write a TL exploring the result of African art not becoming popular among European artistic circles (now that I think about it... I would love to write that :D), it would be easier to somehow prevent various artists from visiting the Museum of the Trocadéro, or eliminating factors that may have led to it displaying African art pieces.



  • Perhaps Braque could have ended up taking his place to an extent. I've read that his first paintings that explored perspective and fragmentation were somewhat influenced by Picasso's Demoiselles but also by Cézanne's later stages in which he became more interested in various uses of perspective and such. Maybe Cubism would have taken a different direction without Picasso, and Braque's work (the same could maybe be said of the reverse, too) would not have looked quite the same without him. However, maybe something akin to it could have emerged. I don't think that there would have been many immediately noticeable repercussions but as time went on this would be be likely. A *Cubism that was somewhat different in the materials it used or its aesthetics but which retained the ideas behind it, or any other differences from OTL, would end up having a different influence on art since then but it would be interesting to explore what that would be.
I don't always believe in the Single Great Person theory but in some situations, a specific person's work may just have tipped the balance into things being the way they are in OTL. In short, I think that something similar to Cubism could have existed but not quite the same thing and with different implications in the future. For example, the Steins's own work would have been different, to use a simple example.


As an aside, I don't see the point of posting comments about disliking Picasso. Whether you like him or not, he had an influence on the artistic scene of his time and later as did many of the ideas behind his work. I don't even speak out of personal bias here as much of my favourite art comes from previous centuries, it's just that generalistic artistic movements does art in general a disservice. Displaying great technical skills on a painting doesn't necessarily make it good, look at a lot of the oversentimental artwork that was flooding the main galleries by the end of the 19th century. Maybe it's more productive if you explore the ramifications of the reasons why he think he sucks if he hadn't existed. ;) I don't really many people commenting on non-art threads with inane remarks like "lolol the Russian Revolution sux!" or "this is soooo boring!", so why should this be any different? Sigh.
 
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