If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso

Gertrude Stein is one of most influential figures in the development of Modernist art, and the relationship between Stein and the visual artists she championed goes both ways. Though Stein never put brush to canvas, poems like “If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso” attempt to transform the page into a spatial art devoid of the logic and narrative that a reader uses to make sense of a work. In her turn away from linear narrative and toward a non-hierarchical method of poetry, Stein mirrors her subject Pablo Picasso’s earlier turn away from linear perspective and toward flat surfaces. Stein’s non-hierarchical use of words and constant focus on the present allows each word to exist both as its pure meaning and as a part of the work’s greater portrait. This reflects the Cubist technique of using pure geometric shapes that come together to generate the painting’s subject. “If I Told Him,” like the experimental works that inspired it, revels in the attempt at an “exact resemblance” (Line 13) while proving such representative depictions impossible.

Stein’s abandonment of linear narrative has many consequences. The Cubists were attacked by early critics for their incomprehensible works, and Stein’s chosen form opens her poetry to similar misinterpretation. These misinterpretations are also fueled by Stein’s reliance on juxtapositions and repetitions (See: Literary Devices) to move the poem forward. Her reliance on juxtapositions, or the technique of placing two different things in contrast to one another, mimics the contrasting values of a painter’s palette and makes her resulting portrait exist solely in the interpreter’s subjective reading. In this way, the poem’s literary devices work together to expand possible interpretations. This expansion of meaning, however, is also what leads to misunderstandings. Though complex relationship between reader and speaker is present in all poetry, Stein’s speaker is unique in that they are acutely aware of this complexity and uses it to argue that an “exact resemblance” (Line 13) is impossible. This problem is intentionally compounded by Stein’s decision to depict Picasso in the present tense.

Stein draws attention to this formal feature and its complications early in the poem. Her speaker plays with the present tense “Now. / Not now. / And now” (Lines 3-5), to demonstrate the fleeting nature of each of the poem’s impressions. Each moment develops from one another, going from “Now” (Line 3) to “Not now” (Line 4), arriving back at “Now” (Line 6), suggesting that linear progress is experienced but ultimately impossible. The same lack of progress is evident when the speaker repeats “Who came first Napoleon the first” (Line 21), unable to progress to the second or third. When “Two” (Line 60) and “Three” (Line 62) appear later in the poem, they are similarly repetitive and self-contained. Their presentation suggests the speaker is referencing the concepts of two and three rather than placing them in ascending numerical order. This emphasis on the present tense reinforces that the portrait exists “presently” (Line 50), as the reader encounters the words. The portrait is immediate, yet it changes shape as the poem moves.

Unlike traditional descriptions, which solidify as they progress, Stein’s portrait is in constant flux. The speaker varies the poem’s repeated phrases to give them a sense of depth and substance, showcasing the potential of each word without tying them down to any one meaning. The clearest example of this is when the speaker explores the complex relationship between exactitude and resemblances: “Exact resemblance to exact resemblance the exact resemblance as exact resemblance, exactly as resembling, exactly resembling, exactly in resemblance exactly and resemblance” (Line 13). This varied repetition mimics the Cubist technique of showing the same object from many sides on a single, flat plane. Like the Cubists, Stein uses this effect to present multiple sides of a word—and of Picasso—as holding equal value. This non-hierarchical presentation demonstrates Stein’s idea of the dynamic relationship between perceiver and perceived. A resemblance can be complete when all of these aspects of a person—or in the above example, a word—are taken at once.

Stein’s poem points to the absurdity of an “exact resemblance” (Line 13) in any medium. This absurdity reaches its peak midway through the poem. Stein’s speaker cannot resist the urge to laugh at the simplest representation of a man, the masculine second-person pronoun: “He he he he and he and he and and he and he and he and and as and as he and as he and he” (Line 39). This intermingling of laughter and male representation resonates with the poem’s last lines, where the speaker says they will “recite what history teaches” (Line 91). Despite this line coming at the poem’s end, Stein’s non-linear approach suggests that her speaker has already recited this lesson. Like the speaker’s ideas of linearity and resemblances, their idea of history is intimately tied with the poem’s form.

Stein’s non-conventional portrait of Picasso unravels the possibility of an exact resemblance just as the poem attempts to create one. History, like the speaker’s phrases, is constantly repeating itself. The speaker points toward this cliché with the repetition “what history teaches. History teaches” (Line 91). Also like the speaker’s phrases, however, history’s repetitions are always different and never build upon one another. Nobody comes after “Napoleon” (Line 21). Instead, history continues to influence the present and show different aspects of itself to each new interpreter.