Picasso's logical method(Picasso's Bull Series)

When we see a series of related works together we can understand the artist's idea better.
Searching online with "picasso quotes"I often read Picasso's comments about art.
This time I searched online with "picasso bull"and found two familiar images of bull.
Seeing the two aside on Microsoft Word screen I realized that his method of drawing is logical.

The arrowed shape must have been drawn first since only this is not numbered.
The first group of bulls is very popular not only in books but online because this series shows his way of abstracting process.
He printed eleven processes of picture drawn on the same stone plate
The date shows that the second drawing was executed immediately after the series.

Let me start from the first set.
The common image in all the pictures is  bull-likeness: horns; head; torso; legs; sexual organ and tail.
The bull is not specific: standing bull with face to the right.

The contour is the dominant formal factor in the first work.
Subsequently the lines start running like a wire structure for a plaster model of a sculpture.
 It is clear that the eyes run along the lines of the works: the network is the thing to be seen as artwork.

This time I start from # 7, putting aside # 1～6 for another blog.
Overlapping each figure with the next one, I made three illustrations.
Now we can easily see the gradual change of design and position.

S shaped left horn and the right horn become one U shaped line.
The position of the right tip moves to the left tip position.
The chin and the mouth disappear.
A patch around the eye becomes the face.
The hind legs become crossed lines corresponding to the second foreleg.

The throat disappears.
The neck becomes single line.
The horns attached to the head at two points is attached at a point of the new head.
each leg becomes single line.

The head shrinks to the size of the eye at the position of the chin.
The neck disappears; the two lines of the body connect to the head directly.
The horn lowers the position, keeping the right tip position and the left tip to the previous attaching point of the horns and the head.

He made the design simple mostly erasing, bending and stretching the lines.
In the series of photos of Matisse's Pink Nude each painting was made on the same canvas after the previous image was erased; he did not reuse the lines or position  of previous image.

Words alone cannot explain art theory.
Like musical theory, we should invent notational system.
This time I show one more device.

Most of artefacts are made of smooth lines which are divisible into separably visible units after repeating process of making many times.
We can recognize evenly warped curve as one unit on line.
Enclose each unit with a rectangle; the line becomes the warped diagonal of the rectangle.
The pattern made of the diagonals makes a diagonal model.
As the model holds the shape- likeness, it is useful to handle freely without fixed proportion and angle.

Now let me redraw each shape of the sketches.

The pair of horns, the eyes and the tail have a look of ornamental element, which suggests that Picasso's interes is the body and legs.
Neglecting the ornamental parts which can be attached anywhere, draw the diagonal model over each drawing.
Classify the models according to the string -grid model.

Without the horns and the tail the structures look like raised-floor houses.

The body being divided into two parts by bent line, the face turns to the front.

Making the dividing line straight, the face turns to the right.

The body is divided into three parts: head, back and belly.
The last one remind me of expressionistic architecture.
The realistic look is iconic level and expressionistic level is symbolic level.

There is neither the beginning nor the end of art.
As we know the smallest element of shape, we can classify all the artworks on formal level.
Picasso said, " there is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality." (Picasso quotes)
Picasso stayed on semiotic level to limit the searching area and handled the pattern on formal level.

This blue coloured model as geometrical pattern can be represented in eight different ways on grid.
Among possible combinational shapes, Picasso limited the choice on semiotic level: he chose body part facing the right is supported on leg part.

Usually artwork is multi-layered and each layer can be perceived separately.
Formal art is based on sense, i. e. un-semiotic.
"Those who understands is not better than those who appreciates, those who appreciates is not better than those who enjoys" (Confucius)
Art seeing is not understanding artwork but enjoying it on sense level.
Art making is the most primitive thinking of human activity.
Structuralism has been defined as " the search for the underlying pattern of thought in all forms of human activity. (Wikipedia)
Art theory is the search for the underlying pattern of the most primitive thought.

Picasso  did not call himself cubist. (level of art of cord)
The raging bull in Guernica series is expressive. (level of art of symbol)
Each bull in this series does not represent specific bull in nature but an illustration of a bull. (level of art of icon)
Picasso handles the line of the works like grass work. (level of art of form)
We are having good chance to understand Picasso's art theory better by seeing all his works; Picasso intentionally dated his works for future.

Why Cezanne's work gives us so strong impact?
Cubism is Picasso's answer: Picasso tried to explain the mechanism of such effect by making simplified model.
New art accompanies new model renovating the proceeding old style of art.

American formalists could not evaluate the formal renovation of post-cubist Picasso.
Some thought that only abstract art was modern and, as a consequence, their modern art came to end.
The authentic formalism means that form alone matters regardless semiotic appearance.
Potentially every visible thing as retinal image becomes art work.
Only when we admit that art is not an object but the image, the first time in history we have opportunity of establishing unified art theory based on digital images online.