John Barry and the Picasso Syndrome
Picasso Self-Portrait
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In their final years, John Barry and Pablo Picasso were often criticized for having limited their palette of colors to pastels. Where was the revolutionary zeal to innovate which had once carved a jagged niche out of a jaded public accustomed to incessant novelty?
Both, in their old age, allowed themselves a freedom that, at the very end of life, neither sought to try to justify. They had found communion with a greater ethos than fame and public acceptance, each had found interior celebration of life itself.
Such a celebration begins with profound contemplation of life’s opposite: death.
Composer JOHN BARRY
This visage pauses at the frontier that separates life from death. Nothing else is expressed in the features, which in their rigidness reveal the extreme receptiveness of the eyes. And there is no doubt that these eyes are aware of life’s end.
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Both Picasso and Barry were the old Masters of their day, living the good life of fine wine, a beautiful young wife, four children, a superb lifestyle of wealth and fame and above all, a serious contemplation of beauty in both nature and art.
Maestro Barry’s two final solo albums grappled with memory, longing, love, and the infinite. The Beyondness of Things and Eternal Echoes are titles clearly marking these intentions.
Pablo Picasso’s last self-portrait was titled Facing Death.
Each, in his own way, faced eternity or oblivion as a Catholic, having eschewed all outward trappings of spirituality until the final years.
John Barry’s last track on his final album is titled, Elegy.
What is an elegy but a serious meditation which mourns what shall be lost in death?
We must pause to ask, what is lost in the passing of both Pablo Picasso and John Barry?
Picasso is arguably the most collected, most referenced and most famous artist of the 20th century, and perhaps in all of art history.
John Barry created a romantic legend straddling three worlds of music which includes Rock n Roll (John Barry Seven), film scores (Five Academy Awards), Jazz/Big Band (original arrangements both unique and memorably his own style, and musical theater. (Passion Flower Hotel, Lolita My Love, Little Prince, Billy, Brighton Rock).
He is best known for his scores to the James Bond movies, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy, Living Daylights. (His creation of the James Bond Theme from a few notes sketched by Monty Norman, due to contract obligations, has gone unknown by the public at large.)
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What is the Picasso Syndrome?
Well, rather than a ‘thing,’ it is a symptom on the part of the artist’s audience who begin to complain of too much repetition, sameness, and predictability. In actuality, it is a failure to understand the nature of an Artist’s journey of exploration through many periods and phases.
In both painting and music composition we find theme, variations and medium. John Barry’s most innovative period blossomed as time for capturing the ear with exotic instruments and mixed stylization. His final period eschewed odd textures in favor of great majesty in strings and horns, piano and choirs.
For Picasso, the transition from traditional portraiture to Modern Cubism stunned the general public as readily as his fixation on the color blue soon to follow. Each stage of his development alienated those who preferred the previous period’s work.
In each instance, it wasn’t the fault of either composer or painter that their admirers soon became detractors for no other reason than the unwillingness to allow the artist absolute freedom of expression unfettered by demands of a marketplace.
If an Artist is the slave of public tastes, it is a tragedy for both.
John Barry and Pablo Picasso reached the end of their respective lives firmly positioned as master’s of their domain. What history or posterity may decide is of no more importance than the decision to make Pluto a planet or a small, icy body beyond the orbit of Neptune.
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Their works shall ever live on!
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List of Movies scored by John Barry
