A Study of the Body in Picasso's Paintings by the Deleuze's Philosophical Concepts

Having a specific view towards the subject of the human body is a characteristic of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy, one of the most influential experimentalist philosophers of the 20th century. This French philosopher built his postmodern philosophy based on human being and body structure. He had one of the most materialistic points of view towards the life and human body. Body without Organs is one of the most important concepts of his approach that demonstrates the framework of Deleuze’s philosophy about human. The body without organs is the result of putting the dualistic view - soul and body - away. With pursuing body without subject or a fixed center which was brought up by Phenomenologists like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty in the past, Deleuze took one step forward and brought up the new term: body without organs. The human, resulting from this view is forming constantly in his life beyond gender, identity, or any kind of fixed structure; and these uninterrupted happenings cause his existence; in other words, an evolving body that does not stop moving and changing until death. Since this subject was one of the important issues for Deleuze, he had some writings and interviews about it. One of the most famous samples of Deleuze’s philosophy in art is the interpretation of Bacon’s paintings in the book “Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation”. Here we want to go further and interpret one of the other modern artist’s artworks via this approach. Picasso could be one of these artists because when reviewing his artworks, we found some clues that make his works readable by Deleuze's philosophy. In some of Picasso’s paintings, the human bodies are so different from classical stereotypes and we confront with features of the formless body that is very similar to the body without organs of Deleuze e.g. in Picasso’s self-portraits that he continued to paint during his life, we face multi-pieces yet coherent bodies that are broken in time, re-arranged, and made again. At the end of this series, we can find a character who could be rebuilt many times despite its constant identity. Another clue in Picasso’s painting is related to the gender of the subjects. We can see, especially in the painter’s later paintings, the issue of gender is considered as a fluid factor, and it can be seen that Picasso sometimes did not emphasize the sexual identity of his figures either. Ultimately, some of Picasso’s paintings demonstrate that the feelings of the subject, who is appointed in a special situation, is the main issue of a scene. It means the artist wants to show a particular situation that is shaped by the role and interaction of the subjects with the painting space. So from this point of view, the identity of the subjects or their genders couldn’t be the main factor for paintings, while the artist focuses on atmosphere and feelings in each picture. This view is beyond merely following the form and style in painting and shows the artist’s point of view about the subject of human. Assuming that Picasso intended to offer a new definition of the body, this article claims that his works can be considered as a version of Deleuze’s body without organs philosophy. So we asked this question: Is it possible to compare some of Picasso’s artworks, especially the late works of the artist, with the body without organs of Deleuze's philosophy? The importance of this article is to find the logical connection between postmodern philosophy and art, which could be a suitable way to compare visual modern arts with philosophy. The method of research in this article is descriptive-analytical. By using reliable library resources, at first, the fundamentals of postmodernism are reviewed, then Deleuze’s view regarding body is defined, and following that the concept of the body without organs and gender is fully explained; and finally, in the analytical part, body in Picasso’s paintings is discussed and interpreted considering the theoretical framework of the research. Also, the data in a comparative table answered the hypothesis of the paper which means some of Picasso’s paintings are comparable with the philosophy of Deleuze’s. It should be noted that in the research literature, the documents and sources that are somewhat close to the present subject have been completely mentioned.