Parallel Lives and Art

Perhaps no two artists mirrored and epitomized the tumultuous 20th century in all its brilliance and in all its brutality than Pablo Picasso, the Spaniard, and Francis Newton Souza, the Indian. Throughout their lives, both men seemed at war within themselves, with family and friends, and with social and religious mores.

Picasso and Souza were analogous from the start. Both nearly died in early childhood, Picasso at birth, Souza at age four from smallpox. Both were raised by doting, protective mothers in a strict Roman Catholic household. (Although each painter later rejected the Church and its many doctrines and dogmas, each used religious motifs and narratives often in their paintings throughout their lifetimes.) Their artistic skills and passions were realized at a very young age; both were sent off to art schools due to their dislike and boredom of public schools and because of their penchant for getting into trouble. (Picasso adorned one of his textbooks with pornographic drawings; Souza was expelled for allegedly doing the same on the school’s restroom walls.) However, neither graduated from their respective art schools because of their already developing disdain towards authority.

This contempt for tradition also began to manifest in their paintings. Picasso’s credo was a rejection of life and creation; his art was a weapon against man, against human nature, against the God who created it all. It was a denunciation of the bourgeois society, outdated sexual and political mores and conventions, of the horrors of war, and of traditional art styles. In response to baffled critics attempting to explain his work, he replied, “The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?” Souza, who started the Progressive Artist Group in Bombay, proclaimed, “Today we paint with absolute freedom for content and technique, almost anarchic”.

In their works, both placed emphasis on a definitive line to trace the twist and movement of the human body; the ritual treatment of the erotic by applying three-dimensional qualities to the canvas’ flat surface. Both painted to shock society with a pointed, brusque expressionism—reflecting their own, as well as the whole of mankind’s essentially rebellious nature. The countless nudes that each painted during their long careers reflected the beauty, uninhibited sexuality—and often the grotesqueness—of the female form; they conveyed the disillusion and despair that accompanied their violent delights and sexual pleasures. Works like Picasso’s “Christ Blessing the Devil” and Souza’s “Crucifixion” reflected their antagonism towards organized religion and homage to a God of suffering and vengeance, not of a gentle compassion. Both artists straddled the duality of sin and sensuality.

They were comparable, likewise, in the ways they lived. Both disavowed politics and became members of the Communist party. Neither seemed quite capable of loving; between the two, they were entrenched in five failed marriages—Picasso was married twice and had several mistresses, some much younger than himself. Souza was married three times, the third, a British teenager while he was 40. In either case, alienated family members, including children, did not attend the funerals of these artistic geniuses after living long, intense, bitter, and complex lives. (It is quoted that after Picasso’s death at 90 years old, Souza proclaimed with conviction “now that Picasso is dead, I am the greatest!”). Both artists were intense egoists—amicable one moment; their loathing, jealousy, and distrust of people, apparent in another. Both were bohemian rebels who lived in luxury.

Picasso and Souza were products—reflections, really—of the 20th century. Both were creators and destroyers. One cannot view their work without at once being forced to participate in certain passions and fears, which make their violent distortions of the visual world comprehensible and sympathetic. Frequently these passions were chaotic and destructive, as though each painting liberated the artists from personal and international turmoil. Their art and lives were a legacy of perversities, conflicts, anguish, rage, and contradictions, very much like the era in which they had lived.