Until May 6th of this year, The National Gallery of Art, in association with the Frick Gallery of New York, will be displaying the exhibition “Picasso’s Drawings, 1890-1921: Reinventing Tradition.” In celebration of that collection, this week the Gallery will screen the classic documentary The Mystery of Picasso (Le Mystère Picasso) (1956) at three separate showings on February 8, 9 and 10.
The film was birthed out of a friendship between the painter and the film’s director, Henri-Georges Clouzot. Clouzot and his cinematographer, Claude Renoir, film Pablo Picasso as he is painting. That is the beginning, middle and end of this movie. There is little talking among the three participants. There is no expansive backstory on the artist. No discussion of his method. No deep incite into what he thinks about painting or how he goes about it. There is only painting.
There could certainly be an expansive documentary about Picasso’s life. Any man whose real name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso, certainly has some interesting stories to tell, but it seems history has missed its opportunity. What he have in Clouzot’s film is arguably more important. The opportunity to watch a master at work; to see a painting fully constructed, starting with nothing but a blank canvas. There is so little footage of painters actually painting in film, that the chance we get here, with such a renowned artist, is a unique one.
Aside from filming the canvas from the side or from an over-the-shoulder perspective, the film utilized a specially-made glass canvas that could be filmed from the opposite side, providing a breathtaking level of detail. This had been done before (in the out-of-print Bezoek aan Picasso (1949)), and also used since, in filming other artists like Jackson Pollock, but The Mystery of Picasso remains the definitive experience in watching a great painter paint.
Supposedly, all the paintings made by Picasso in this documentary were subsequently destroyed. That is, no registry has them under file. It’s a shame. However, if any did survive, they would probably be without provenance, and as the great art documentary Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? (2006) proved, even with The Mystery of Picasso as evidence, they’re likely not to be considered by the art world as part of his official canon.
Clouzot’s smartest decision in making the film was to switch between black & white and color photography. It not only allows you to study Picasso’s use of color, but alternately lets you focus on his distinctive line work and the way he moves his paint around the canvas.
Purportedly, there are only three fields in which a person can be labeled as a genius: mathematics, music, and chess. Art (specifically painting) has always wanted to be considered as part of that elite group. Perhaps art is too different. Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, artists who have prodigious talent are beholden to the opinions of those in the art world. My Kid Could Paint That (2007) showed that there may not be a link between child prodigies and art, other than luck. Still, talent like Picasso’s comes along once in a generation, and the opportunity to watch a master at work is worth more than the price of admission. Though it may not be technically correct to call Picasso a genius, in watching The Mystery of Picasso, one wonders what other term could be more appropriate.
The Mystery of Picasso will play The National Gallery of Art on Wednesday, February 8th at 2:00, with additional screenings on the 9th and 10th at 12:30. The film will play in the East Building Concourse. If you miss the screenings, the film is also available on DVD and VHS. The preferable format is DVD, as the film widens its aspect ratio deep into the film.
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