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Pablo Picasso
The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro, 1909
The landscapes Picasso produced in Spain in 1909 were critical to the development of the early Cubist style, in which subjects are rendered from multiple perspectives using faceted forms and simplified geometric shapes. In The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro (titled using the artist's name for the town of Horta de Sant Joan), Picasso used interlocking planes to fuse the land's rugged topography with the terra-cotta and stucco architecture of the village. The spatial ambiguity characteristic of Cubism is evident: the steep hillside suggests an upward gaze while the curved shape at the bottom -- a cistern -- reveals a downward view into a reflection on water. |