Picasso (1945). Bull (states I to XI) [engraving]. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY © 2008 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society, New York.

In this series, Picasso has rendered the form of a bull in a sort of abstraction gradient. The earlier prints are based on naturalism, and as the series progresses, they become steadily abstracted until they are reduced to a handful of strokes. | 

The purpose of this series is to experiment with abstraction. A bull, a beast with varied and specific symbolic significance across cultures and time periods, is steadily distilled to textured shapes, then planar shapes, and finally unadorned lines. 

A reasonably full range of value is initially used to develop detail, define edges and create textures. As abstraction progresses, steadily drained detail and mass is applied in very specific locations to maintain the creature’s characteristic traits (bulk and strength). Upon reaching the final prints, abstraction becomes severe to the point of oversimplification. The theme is maintained in the last print, but that is all. 

Spatial order, like the viewer’s perspective and picture frame treatment, is a minimal consideration in this series. Toward the beginning, where realism dominates over abstraction, textures and overlap are used only to the degree needed to support that sense of naturalism. Even towards the end of this “single-themed” abstraction scale, pictorial balance is stable and unmoving. 

When the series is taken in total, balance is based on “calm” contrasts (rather than jarring). Well-crafted textures created through value range harden into solid, flat shapes before disappearing in favor of thin, curved strokes. What arguably is a single figurative shape becomes fragmented into a handful of edge-incised mechanical objects before being treated in the same manner as texture. The only obvious domination to be found is the subjects over-sized singularity on each canvas. 

Eye movement is dependent on the individual print. Generally, it is diffuse toward the beginning but more deliberate as lines become the dominant element in the more abstracted prints. 

This series is a case study in the development of abstraction and consistency. The scale the works in total create is an excellent model that anyone can use to understand the degree of abstraction of other works. The single subject, or theme, and the even degree of dilution of realism in favor of simplification establish this series’ characteristic consistency.