Stage at the Edge of the Sea: Picasso’s Scenographic Imagination

Abstract

Picasso’s interest in popular entertainers, the commedia dell’arte, Greek myth, and theater has long been recognized. Less attention has been accorded his pictorial staging of these dramas, demonstrated in his articulation of a stagelike division of theatrical zones. Picasso’s scenographic approach is evident in key paintings and prints, in his set designs for Diaghilev’s ballet Pulcinella, and in The Remains of the Minotaur in the Costume of Harlequin, a gouache enlarged into a stage curtain. Here, as in so many of these works, the topography of the imagination takes shape as a theatrical set at the edge of the sea.