Black and Brown

Consider that Picasso's Portrait of Gertrude Stein is dated 1906 after ninety some sittings. It's one-hundred years old this year. Of note is its utter simplicity both in composition (she's a mountain, not a madonna) and its palette.

Now look at Marsden Hartley's Portrait of a German Officer, 1914, eight years later. I mentioned the German Officer series in class on Tuesday when I told you that Hartley had visited Darger at some point in his life. In Hartley you see the American response to European Modernism.

In the Picasso, consider what can be done with brown. In the Hartley consider what can be done with black. Of note particularly, since I harangue you endlessly about brown-sauce-painting, why is it that in the Stein portrait we don't have the sense that he just daubed at the brown because he couldn't think of anything else to use?