Artists: Seeing things differently with Pablo Picasso - KS4/5

Resources

• Leader and 4 Readers
• PowerPoint presentation provided (PP)
• OR Picasso's paintings of the Weeping Woman, the Three Musicians, the Wounded Bird and Cat, and the Sleeping Woman could be accessed on the internet and shown during the assembly

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Engagement

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Reader 1: Perhaps she has simply been preparing the family dinner and chopping the onions. Perhaps they were particularly strong and have nipped her eyes to make them stream with tears. Perhaps she has a cold and her nose runs and eyes water as her body fights off the illness. Or maybe she has simply watched a sad movie - one where love is lost or tragedy has struck - where she can see herself in the shoes of the main character. Perhaps she has just had some sad news about the illness or death of a friend. Or perhaps she is just recalling a memory of what once was or what might have been. Are her tears for life's ordinary troubles, or its darker side?

[Pause]

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Reader 2: Three of them playing their favourite music. One seems to play a clarinet - or it is a saxophone? One strums a guitar and the other... it is not clear what he plays - though he looks like a monk - so perhaps he is singing... a doleful spiritual chant perhaps; the sound of faith. But one is dressed not unlike a clown, so perhaps his guitar strums a joyful tune, while the clarinet sings out a tune of sorrow. Perhaps the dog in the scene howls along to the music - or maybe it's trying to escape the terrible din made by the three musicians. I can see both the serious and the frivolous in this image...does life sway from one to the other?

[Pause]

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Reader 3: Surely the bird's life is at an end. It has already been fatally wounded it would seem. Perhaps the cat is toying with it now - despite a full belly from the hands of its master. Maybe it will let the bird live a few more minutes and then finish its work. The cat's claws are long and sharp - did they tear the bird's wing apart, or was it those sharp teeth? Or perhaps we do the cat a disservice. Perhaps it has found a dying bird and is taking it to its master - in the hope that the bird might be saved. That would seem to go against a cat's nature - but who is to say what nature this cat has. We judge the cat - and find it wanting. We assume that it is doing wrong, causing pain for the sake of it. Perhaps we misjudge the cat....perhaps in life we often leap to the wrong conclusion.

[Pause]

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Reader 4: She sleeps - apparently - head cradled in her arms. Has she just finished an exhausting day of work - struggling to make ends meet and provide for those she loves? Or is she tired of more than that; of life's troubles and hardships? Perhaps though, she is just lazy. Perhaps she simply can't be bothered to do what needs to be done - and hides from it all in sleep. Perhaps those who depend on her will go unsupported because she refuses to trouble herself with their needs- preferring her own comfort. Then again, maybe she is weary of all that she has to do - and has snatched a few rare moments of rest in an otherwise non-stop life. Should we wake her and criticise her laziness, or leave her to her well-earned rest?

[Pause]

Reflection

Leader: The painter Pablo Picasso produced many paintings in styles which were often difficult to understand and interpret. Many of his works were in the cubist or surrealist style - where facial features took on all sorts of unusual forms. His work combined the ordinary in life with the extraordinary - and often it was not clear whether his works were designed to make us laugh or cry...or perhaps both at the same time. The dark things of life abound in his works - though there are often light touches of humour present at the very same time. Was Picasso's view of the world a positive one or not? Does his habit of expressing humour and misery at the same time reflect what life is actually like?

Picasso certainly saw the world differently. He seemed to want to convey its contradictions, and the fact that life is complex and that things are not always necessarily what they seem. Like any good artist, he challenges us to make sense of our lives and reflect upon how we see things and question our assumptions about the world we live in.

How do you understand the world in which you live? What assumptions do you make about life... about the lives of others? Do you often take action or do nothing based on your assumptions? How do you see the world, and how does this affect how you live in it?

Response

Reader 1: She was painted as a response to the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil war. She weeps for her fellow countrymen and women - and for the fact that sons turned against fathers and sisters against sisters. She weeps for the inhumanity which often seems to come all too easily to the human race. Are there times in our lives when we weep for the sins of humankind? Should there be?

Reader 2: It is said that the three musicians are perhaps Picasso and his friends and that it expresses both the seriousness and the frivolity of life. Can life really be solemn and sombre at the same time as chirpy and jolly? Are there times in our lives when we should revel in life's ironies and accept life's contradictions?

Reader 3: We cannot tell whether the cat is the bird's saviour or executioner. We each make our own judgements about whether the intentions of others are good or bad. Should we judge anything in this way? Are our assumptions always right, always helpful?

Reader 4: Perhaps it is simply not our place to judge this woman's sleep, nor to question why she is asleep... perhaps things are often simply none of our business.

Leader: How do you see the world?

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Please listen to these words and make them your own prayer if you wish:

May I think about how I see the world
And about how I act upon what I see
Or think I see
May I challenge my own assumptions
And act accordingly
Amen