Picasso's Visual Metaphors

Abstract

From time I first saw a photograph of Picasso's Bull's Head (fig. 1), a remarkably realistic portrait made from a bicycle seat and handlebars, I was struck by its wry humor and mongrel nature of its medium. Once I even made up a departmental exam tentatively likening Picasso's sculpture to literary metaphor (the question was later deleted by a more orthodox colleague). But it wasn't until I happened upon an article by V. C. Aldrich on Visual Metaphor' that my bloodhound instincts were aroused. His article began with an intriguing quote from Picasso himself: My sculptures are plastic metaphors. It's same principle in painting.2 There it was! Picasso himself had verified my long-standing suspicion that there was such a thing as visual metaphor, and his Bull's Head was a prime instance. This article will explore definition and function of visual metaphor in selected paintings and sculptures from Picasso's works. Before rushing headlong into quicksand of interarts analogies, however, it would be wise at outset to mention at least three potential problems and my tentative solutions. First, quotation Aldrich draws on comes from a widely used but largely discredited biography of Picasso by his former mistress, Franqoise Gilot, and her art-journalist friend, Carlton Lake.3 Dore Ashton excluded Picasso quotations found in Gilot's biography from her own anthology of Picasso quotations, saying that the mixture of possible authentic statement and artful paraphrase seems to me to be of dubious value.4 Nevertheless, there is a grain of truth even in a self-serving or distorted paraphrase. Even forty-four distinguished artists who lodged public protest and supported Picasso's unsuccessful libel suit did not dismiss