The Bahktin in Picasso (Analysis #2)

In all truth it was tempting to post a photo of his younger self. Even though he was sure that this online dating thing wasn't for him, he didn't want the people who were going to be viewing his profile to think him old, or ugly. It was a matter of vanity, really. He knew that when he'd been younger he'd been quite attractive, but those days were now behind him.

He hadn't even wanted to do this in the first place. It was only to pacify his daughters that he'd signed up for the advertised three month trial, because they felt that he'd been single too long. They knew how he missed their mother but they felt that eight years of waiting to date again was just ridiculous. Even more than that, they wanted him to be happy, and understood that he was one of those people who needed the comfort of having someone go through life with him. They wanted him to find that.

What they didn't understand was that he had found it in their mother, and her death didn't make it any less true. He'd found his soul mate long ago, and now that she was gone had no interest in acquiring a place-holder. It just wouldn't be fair. Still, it would make his daughters happy to see him try, so with a small sigh he created a brief profile and posted a current photo; maybe not one that would ensure a plethora of interest, but one that was honest.

~**~ 

A self portrait of Pablo Picasso done in 1906. If I recall correctly, there was much debate about why, when his main form of art was in the cubist style, he chose to paint himself in such stark lines, a man gazing unflinchingly into a mirror and recording exactly what he saw. I rather like it. I like the idea that though Picasso enjoyed painting the world around him in distorted images, he also was well aware that the true self should not be distorted. Granted, I do believe that he did paint himself in cubist style as well, so my romantic idea about what he was trying to say is probably just that: a silly idea.

Bahtkin would say that whatever Picasso intended us as an audience to see in his painting, we are not getting it...and even if we stumble upon it by accident, or are told what it is we are to understand by gazing upon this picture, we still cannot experience it as Picasso intended. Bahtkin believed that there were three interpretations in all dialogue, and as dialogue is just one form of art, they can also be applied to this painting. The three interpretations were what was originally intended – whatever Picasso’s message in the painting was supposed to be,  whether it was to himself or to the ones viewing the painting, what the audience themselves sees based on their own experiences and notions, and a third interpretation, the one both outside the image and in between what is on the canvas and what registers in our mind as we gaze upon it (1088). In all of this, it is the third interpretation that interests me most, because it seems to be the one that is free of subjectivity, whether it be the observer’s or the artist’s. The second, however, coincides most with my belief that in everything we do as people; everything we say, write, draw, even think, comes down to what we have experienced ourselves. We as humans can understand concepts that we have not actually experienced, but we have to filter it through ones that we have. For example; if one of my friends has a child and I do not, I cannot fully understand what she is going though; however, I can recall instances of playing with and teaching children that I babysat, or my niece, and use these experiences to relate to my friend. It is the same with this painting. I look at it and see the idea that a person should not flinch from who they are, but rather meet it head on. However, the person standing next to me and gazing upon the same painting will more than likely take an entirely different meaning from it…and neither of these meanings will perfectly coincide with the feelings that the original artist hoped to invoke.

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Discourse in the Novel." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. 1072-106. Print.

http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/f05/fkherani/(8)selfportrait.jpg - Date accessed 1 March 2011