Creativity and the Role of the Artist

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Creativity and the Role of the Artist
Contrary to what most people think, the creation of an artwork is not an impulsive activity. It requires focus and attention – not only to the medium being used to create the work, but also to the message it wants to convey. Just like a writer, the artist makes drafts of his work, and the "proofreads" it several times and the work is transformed in the process. For example, in Pablo Picasso’s Les Desmoiselles d’ Avignon, working sketches and x-ray analyses of the painting shows the various stages it went through before Picasso finally decided on keeping the five nude ladies in the final work. From the original brothel scene consisting of five prostitutes and two male clients (a sailor and a medical student), which was probably meant to convey "some anecdotal or narrative idea contrasting the dangers and joys of both work and pleasure" (Sayre 11), Picasso’s final changes enables the viewer to become a part of the picture as one of the prostitute looks out to the audience and opens the curtain, as if trying to let him in. How did Picasso decide on this final work? History tells us that a year before the Les Desmoiselles, Picasso was deeply affected by the masks he saw in the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro. He delved into woodcarving, and from this experience, Picasso began simplifying forms in his paintings. That year, he completed a radically simplified portrait of Gertrude Stein, one so simple it was no more than a perfectly chiseled mask. Stein loved this new technique because it no longer focused on forms, but rather, on the expressions. Picasso utilized this same technique in painting Les Desmoiselles, particularly the three women on the left whose faces were but African masks. Instead of putting effort into accurately depicting what he saw, Picasso began to paint what he thought. Through the changes in Les Desmoiselles, Picasso created a new era in art – one that was not just centered on aesthetics, but also on the thought process that was involved in the creation of a work of art, and the very message it wants to convey. The final piece for Les Desmoiselles was more than a painting. It conveyed the totality of Picasso’...