La Sieste (Les Moissonneurs), 1919 pencil on paper Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Purchase: The Fred W. Allsopp Memorial Acquisition Fund, 1984. 84.52
Pablo Picasso
Spanish, 1881 - 1973
Picasso was born in 1881 in Malaga, Spain and from very early in his life proved to be a precocious and prolific artist. By 1900, the young Picasso first visited Paris, which was far more active in terms of its influence on the art world, compared to his native Spain. When Picasso arrived, the artists still working there included: Monet, Renoir, Degas, Georges Braque, Cézanne, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, Signac, Odilon Redon and others.
By 1908, Braque and Picasso began the modern movement of Cubism and by 1910 - 1911 the two artists hit full stride with it. To some viewers, the artists' Cubist work approaches abstraction - though they never commit to complete abstraction. During the years 1917 - 1925, Picasso's work shifted considerably to a Classical or Neo-Classical style. This leads us, specifically to Les Moissonneurs (The Harvesters). The title La Sieste is the Spanish term for a midday nap, with the additional term Les Moissonneurs in parenthesis. This is French for The Harvesters,and is the earliest known title for this piece. For the exhibition Picasso: The Classical Years, 1917-1925. Townsend Wolfe, Director and Senior Curator, described his theory for the shift,
In 1917, Picasso worked on the stage sets for the ballet Parade and he traveled to Rome that year. In 1918, he met the young dancer Olga Koklova. During the same year, he visited Naples, where he saw High Renaissance frescoes and the murals at the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. All of these forces - the change in attitude from the confusion of Paris to the exactness of dance, the traditional Greek and Roman art, and a more domestic life style - had a direct effect on his work." Townsend later added, "The renewed contact with the classical, coupled with his knowledge of the simplification of shape and purity of line in the works of Ingres, Poussin, Raphael, Parmagianino and Masaccio, gave form to the Classical years.
Les Moissonneurs, indicative of Picasso's new direction, is a near reduction to pure contour used to create volume. The thickness of the hands and the sleepy quality of the figures cause one to think of weighty, unmoving, ancient statuary. Even with the balance and finish in this drawing, the work is recognized as a study for a painting at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), called Sleeping Peasants, also from 1919. The main difference, of course, is that our drawing represents only the figures. Many of the details in the finished painting, such as a detailed setting are omitted here, as are the elements of color. In essence, the AAC drawing shows the compositional essence of what Picasso wanted to relay. The other elements, including color, were secondary.
  
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