WI No Picasso?

[Goldstein]

That is certainly true. Hm, now I'm wondering if Dadism (and subsequently Surrealism) would be affected at all by Picasso's absence? FWIG, the Zurich clubs were primarily influenced by futurism and East European Symbolism anyway, so it could well produce the same kind of stuff.

That said, German Dada certainly would be changed -- Wikipedia tells us that Max Ernst was "profoundly" influenced by Picasso (as well as Van Gogh and Gaugin) after attending a 1912 exhibition in Cologne, and that Francis Picabia was heavily influenced by Pablo as well, along with Matisse. Actually, didn't Picaba and Duchamp essentially found Dadaism in New York? So that's another way the early school would be affected.

Damn Picasso. Why did you have to be so influential? You're right, maybe Dadaism would be somewhat different in its direct manifestations, I just don't think Surrealism would change drastically, as its linkable relationship with Cubism is much more indirect.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Actually, as I think about it, butterflies could easily kill New York Dadaism entirely -- you just need Duchamp to be just curbed enough that he's not at the Armory Expo in 1913, and vloop -- he doesn't meet Man Ray, who likely goes on to have a much quieter career. Then keep Picaba in Europe, and it'll most likely be Duchamp who packs up looking for a more active art scene (assuming he can get to any of them in the middle of a World War). Also, speaking of surrealism, I can't help but think that no Picasso to influence the plastic artists of the German Dada scene would make said scene somewhat more conservative (well, relatively speaking), and may actually push them to go into a more expressionist direction, combined with a(n unchanged) propensity for photomontage, possibly leading to a proto-surrealism even sooner.

So now, post-war, you have not a single Dadaist school emerging, but two distinct art movements -- German *Surrealism* and Swiss Anti-Art. Where Surrealism goes from there may or may not be that different from what emerged OTL, but at the very least the context in which it is judged will be different, no?

 

[Roger II]

But Surrealism seems to have grown out of the ruins of DADA, IIRC.You'd probably wind up with a german expressionism along prewar lines, with ties to Matisse et al(remember that a 1907 PoD allows time for Picasso and Matisse to play off each other, which they did), maybe an attenuated cubism with Braque and Gris playing foils, and the greater Futurist predominance we predicted already. I'm kind of sad to butterfly pittura metafisica, though. Thought-does butterflying that and so much modernism butterfly Edward Hopper as we know him? I would not be suprised in the least if some of his vibe comes from there, or at the very least something of De Chirico.

 

[Roger II]

Other thought: What does this do to Eisenstein and Vertov? That could have interesting effects.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

You'd probably wind up with a german expressionism along prewar lines, with ties to Matisse et al(remember that a 1907 PoD allows time for Picasso and Matisse to play off each other, which they did), maybe an attenuated cubism with Braque and Gris playing foils, and the greater Futurist predominance we predicted already.

Actually, I was thinking of having Pablo die of depression late 1903 -- do you think that would seriously affect Matisse?

I'm kind of sad to butterfly pittura metafisica, though. Thought-does butterflying that and so much modernism butterfly Edward Hopper as we know him? I would not be suprised in the least if some of his vibe comes from there, or at the very least something of De Chirico.

Actually, Hopper claimed to have had pretty conservative (19th Century) influences, and that during his stay in Paris he "hadn't heard of Picasso at all". As to Metaphysical Art, I presume you're primarily referring to de Chirico -- who, FWIG, since he was already into his proto-surrealism circa 1914, he wasn't really a disciple of Pablo's either.

Other thought: What does this do to Eisenstein and Vertov? That could have interesting effects.

Oh man, now this starts getting interesting...

CONSOLIDATION: Come to think of it, Vertov and Eisenstein may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cinematic butterflies -- what kind of film styles might emerge with a more vibrant futurism and German war-time surrealism?

 

[juanml82]

Well, Soviet filmmakers were heavily influenced by Hollywood, to the point of inviting David Griffith to give lectures in Moscow (offer he obviously refused).
The effects on German expressionism, on the other hand...

 

[King Gorilla]

Come to think of it, Vertov and Eisenstein may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cinematic butterflies -- what kind of film styles might emerge with a more vibrant futurism and German war-time surrealism?

Eisenstein in America, whereas Fritz Lang and William Wilder stay in Germany?

With a stronger German expressionist movement, or at the very least, with no gutting of the German film industry by the Nazi's. Perhaps Charles Laughton starts making films earlier, and that said films are commercially viable if not successful.

 

[CandyDragon]

I think that as such a varied and prolific artist, you'll see a lot of different frames of modern art minorly affected. Cubism is still going to happen, though it may not be as successful. However, his idiosyncratic method is not unique- Alexandra Nechita was producing paintings much like some of Picasso's stuff long before she had ever seen his work.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

With a stronger German expressionist movement, or at the very least, with no gutting of the German film industry by the Nazi's.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves...

 

[King Gorilla]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves...

Fair enough.

I'm better with film than "art".

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I'm better with film than "art".

Same here -- this is the kind of stuff I haven't seriously thought about since college Art History.

 

[tallthinkev]

So, if old Pablo painted the 'silly' stuff and know one liked it what then? He could paint real paintings. Instead of people getting conned out of ten's of millions of pounds his art could still go for ten's of thousands if not more.
It is beyond me why some say this is really good and others believe them. Is it so they don't look supid?
I know what art is and it is not a load of Pollocks.

 

[Roger II]

Actually, I was thinking of having Pablo die of depression late 1903 -- do you think that would seriously affect Matisse?

Actually, Hopper claimed to have had pretty conservative (19th Century) influences, and that during his stay in Paris he "hadn't heard of Picasso at all". As to Metaphysical Art, I presume you're primarily referring to de Chirico -- who, FWIG, since he was already into his proto-surrealism circa 1914, he wasn't really a disciple of Pablo's either.

Maybe, but butterflies are powerful things and I think people tend to overstate how conservative Hopper really was.

Oh man, now this starts getting interesting...

1) Quite possibly; the first artworks to really define Matisse(The Green Line, Woman with a Hat, and Blue Nude) were done after this date, and I got the vibe that they were bouncing off each other around then, having met in 1905. If you want to avoid butterflying that, he'd have to die right before he does the first studies for Les Desmoiselles D'Avingon, so around 1907/8?

2)Maybe, but butterflies are powerful things and I half-suspect people tend to overstate how conservative Hopper really was.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

1) Quite possibly; the first artworks to really define Matisse(The Green Line, Woman with a Hat, and Blue Nude) were done after this date, and I got the vibe that they were bouncing off each other around then, having met in 1905. If you want to avoid butterflying that, he'd have to die right before he does the first studies for Les Desmoiselles D'Avingon, so around 1907/8?

Hm, well he has to die before painting anything in his African period, so really 1906 at the latest. Of course since by then he's well out of his blue period and no longer impoverished, so there's the issue of what exactly kills him...

 

[Roger II]

Hm, well he has to die before painting anything in his African period, so really 1906 at the latest. Of course since by then he's well out of his blue period and no longer impoverished, so there's the issue of what exactly kills him...

Yea, I don't see any way we can kill him before he starts working in this direction without affecting Matisse at least somewhat-everything is just too interconnected, but we can keep the African period from developing beyond the african equivalent of the lightweight end of Japonisme with a PoD around the end of 1906 or very beginning of 1907. As for what kills him. let's be lazy and say that he gets run down by a streetcar or something.
This does give me an idea for a WI that _will_ butterfly much of modern art as we know it: the Stien siblings don't move to Paris and every single person who becomes important in the arts of their generation doesn't wind up meeting them.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Yea, I don't see any way we can kill him before he starts working in this direction without affecting Matisse at least somewhat-everything is just too interconnected, but we can keep the African period from developing beyond the african equivalent of the lightweight end of Japonisme with a PoD around the end of 1906 or very beginning of 1907.

If we kill him around then, it works -- this might, might affect Henri's Blue Nude, but I somewhat doubt it.

This does give me an idea for a WI that _will_ butterfly much of modern art as we know it: the Stien siblings don't move to Paris and every single person who becomes important in the arts of their generation doesn't wind up meeting them.

Oh man, no Gertrude and Leo -- that is an interesting proposition...

CONSOLIDATION: Came across John Richardson's Picasso bio, and found our PoD period -- the late summer of 1906, I read, was exceptionally hot, and at one point the studio above Pablo's caught fire (while his girlfriend was locked below, no less). I can see Picasso dying in the fire if he's there -- or perhaps his girl Fernadete dying in the fire, getting him arrested, and after a trial where his contentious relationship is brought up by the prosecution, found guilty by a jury and sent to the guillotine.

 

[Stolengood]

Vertov not in Russia means... no influence on his brother, Boris Kaufman, and Jean Vigo? Lots of butterflies, there...

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Vertov not in Russia means... no influence on his brother, Boris Kaufman, and Jean Vigo? Lots of butterflies, there...

Well first, we never quite drew the line bw Picasso dying and Russians like Vertov staying in the west. That said, if the PoD leads to Boris Kaufman's brothers being in the same country as him, I actually see them all working together, or at least Boris working with Dziga or Mikhail (two Directors of Photography could get... tricky), but that still means no Vigo-Kaufman partnership. No L'Atlante -- and poetic realism is, at best, seriously altered...

 

[Sicarius]

And what's with an artist just splashing paint on a canvas and selling it for a few thousand? I can do that.

Really? I'd be doing that if I were you, then.

 

[Stolengood]

That said, if the PoD leads to Boris Kaufman's brothers being in the same country as him, I actually see them all working together, or at least Boris working with Dziga or Mikhail (two Directors of Photography could get... tricky), but that still means no Vigo-Kaufman partnership. No L'Atlante -- and poetic realism is, at best, seriously altered...

Vertov visited Kaufman in Paris in 1929, giving him advice, showing him some of his work, and his first camera; it was subsequently used as one of the cameras on À propos de Nice.

Vertov also visited him in 1931, during which time Kaufman and Vigo were working on Taris; I can only assume that both Vertov and Vigo were impressed.

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.