If it quacks like a triangle, then it must be Picasso’s duck
a parable from another place and time
Forrest C. Greenslade, PhD

Spanish painter Pablo Picassoⁱ is credited with pioneering a dramatic movement in painting and sculpture called Analytic Cubismⁱⁱ in the early 1900s. According to most art historians, Picasso (influenced by Paul Gauguin) analyzed objects and then made them into basic geometric shapes, which he used to represent the natural world. It is also recorded that Picasso didn’t place much emphasis on color -- his works consisted of monotone colors, like gray and blue. Most experts believe that Picasso’s cubist style laid the foundation for most trends in modern art. 

But this is the real story.

Picasso had an elderly (and apparently unknown) apprentice, who began studying art in his dotage, after a long career as a scientist and organizational executive. The apprentice wanted to impress Picasso with his artistic skills and understanding of design principles, so he set out to create a sculpture of his master’s favorite animal – his pet duck. 

The apprentice was drawing impaired, so he started with a simple geometric shape, a twelve inch equilateral triangle. He then cut 20 of these shapes out of hardware cloth metal mesh. He sewed four of the mesh triangles to form a pyramid (figure 1 right), using a thin wire as thread. He made five such three dimensional geometrical objects as the basic design elements of his sculpture. He intended to demonstrate the design principles of unity, balance and focal point to create an abstract representation of Picasso’s pet duck.


Using design concepts like repetition, proximity and continuity, the apprentice created a sense of unity among the five objects. He wired them together to make a unified overall design (figure 2 below). 

The unified object generally resembled the apprentice’s vision of Picasso’s duck. The pyramidal shapes roughly represented the duck’s head, tail wings, body and legs. He was happy with the asymmetric balance of the design. However, the slightly unbalanced posture of the overall design, made the sculptural armature look like it was walking in the characteristic duck waddling style. He distorted the shapes of the pyramids to give further movement to the armature.

He further unified the whole work by coating all exterior surfaces with a concrete composite material. He used one part Portland cement, one part screened peat moss, a little water, and a dash of an acrylic fortifier to make a clay-like substance, which he adhered to the mesh surfaces. Concrete naturally binds to metal to produce a strong shell.

The apprentice added bright yellow glass eyes to the duck’s head to establish focal points.

He used additional concrete, creating lines which produced an illusion of motion. After the concrete had cured for several hours, the apprentice used a chop stick, sharpened in an automatic pencil sharpener, to carve lines delineating additional triangular areas on the sculpture. He let the piece cure further for a day or two, until the surface felt dry and hard. He then applied a coat of concrete sealer to promote further curing.

The apprentice didn’t want to spend much money on this project. So he worked with only one or two colors. He used some old blue exterior house paint to add a monochromatic treatment to the surface planes of his object. To further enhance the illusion of motion, he made alternating painted lines to the tail and feet. He painted the planes of the piece that he envisioned as being in shadow in black. He added additional black lines at many intersections of blue triangles to emphasize the illusion of plains of light and motion. In order to further enhance the focal points, the apprentice isolated the yellow glass eyes in areas of black. Finally, several coats of acrylic sealer were added to produce a deep lustrous surface to enhance the sense of unity to the sculpture. 

When his sculpture (Figure 3) was complete, the apprentice proudly took it to Picasso. 

Picasso looked at it and laughed uproariously, “Well, it looks vaguely like my duck, and has a duck-like waddle, but something is just not right.” The apprentice retorted, “If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it must be a duck.” Picasso allowed, “Ok, but why did you make my nice curved duck look so angular?” The apprentice did not want to admit that he could not draw accurately, so he made up an explanation, “This is a new style of art called triangleism.” Picasso said. “Humpf!” and dismissed the apprenticeⁱⁱⁱ.
Picasso thought about his apprentice’s rendition of his pet duck for days. He actually loved the sculpture. He wanted to make many, many paintings and sculptures just like this, but he didn’t want to share the recognition that he knew would follow with his lowly apprentice.

After months of brooding, Picasso came upon an idea. He made a cube instead of a triangle. For many years Picasso only used blue paint.

***

i http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso  
ii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_cubism  
iii After being dismissed from Picasso’s studio, the apprentice lived out his life in obscurity. He never sculpted again. He did try his hand at painting, but with little success. One of his paintings, however, did find minor recognition at a local agricultural fair. He called it Goose Descending a Staircase.