Hommage à Picasso 1972

Renato Guttuso made this piece, 'Hommage à Picasso', as a big up to Picasso, a master of the 20th Century. I'm seeing ink and wash, maybe gouache for the blue block in the background, and I just love the loose, sketchy quality; you can feel Guttuso feeling his way around the figures. There is such a tension between line and form here, like a drawing that's trying to be a painting but can't quite decide. Look at the way the wash creates these shadow-like forms, almost like ghostly presences behind the figures, it really adds to the moodiness of the piece. The linear quality reminds me of Picasso’s drawings and prints from the 30’s, while the figures evoke his paintings of bathers. It's cool how Guttuso takes on Picasso, but not in a slavish way, he makes it his own. The piece reminds me of Philip Guston, both in the sense of the cartoonish figures and in the way it manages to be playful and serious at the same time.