Blank Canvas as Corporeal Extension (Emma G)

Picasso’s studio constituted a “corporeal extension” of the artist. Describe the examples Nead provides that illustrates this extension. What did the blank canvas in his (Picasso‘s) studio represent? (28-29) Emma

Examples of the corporeal extension of the artist:

1)    A photograph of the cast of Picasso’s hand

2)    Brassaï made a number of photographic studies of Picasso’s studio; carefully staged and lit still- lifes, strategically ordered disorder.

     and of course:

3)    The image of the blank canvas or paper

The blank canvas in Picasso’s studio represented “an indication of the 'sublimity' of the artist's creative genius...so unique and ephemeral that it is beyond pictorial representation" (p. 28)”

In other words (Nead goes onto say), “the untouched surface – or screen – can itself bear the corporeal connotations of the artist’s body. It is a sign of vast potentiality, empty and full of meaning at the same time. In this context, the representation of the artist at work, in the act of creativity, reveals the very moment when artistic identity and a precarious masculinity are inscribed…” (p. 28 my emphasis).

Nead’s reference to artistic identity and precarious masculinity builds from Derrida’s concept of style, which Nead explains as two-fold; on the one hand, there is the object that “makes” style, usually conceived as pointed, sharp, something that inscribes upon a surface. The other side of the coin is that there must be a surface to inscribe – cited above as either a ‘blank canvas’ or a ‘screen.’ Interestingly, this latter component is described as

My question: If the blank canvas (or the screen) is gendered female, how might living our lives behind screens bring a more “feminine” orientation to self-expression, if at all? Put (very) differently, might a cultural reliance on screens be the starting point for a matriarchal rise to power?