Mini Eclectic Analysis of Nightfishing at Antibes

Open Viewing
When first looking at the painting, the most striking aspect is the general color mood. There are very dark tones, suggesting the "night" portion of the "Nightfishing" in the title. However, I am struck by the presence of what clearly appears to be the sun in the upper middle portion of the painting. The use of reds and oranges explicitly suggest sun, rather than moon, which is ironic considering the title. The next thing my eye tries to do while looking at the painting is identify all of the figures. There appear to be two women on the right side of the painting, standing on some sort of brick wall construct. In the middle is a man, bent over and piercing a fish. Next to him in the boat appears to be a dog or other similar animal. There is another fish in the water, and next to it, in the lower left corner of the painting, appears to be a crab or something similar, but it is difficult to tell. In the upper left area, there are two figures that appear to be birds. The one thing that catches my attention as not being able to at all identify is the object between the man's hand and the women. It appears to be emanating light. Maybe a lighthouse? It is hard to tell.

Historical (All stolen directly from the slides)
Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain. The son
of an academic painter, José Ruiz Blanco, he began to draw at an early
age. In 1895, the family moved to Barcelona, and Picasso studied there at
La Lonja, the academy of fine arts. His visit to Horta de Ebro from 1898
to 1899 and his association with the group at the café Els Quatre Gats
about 1899 were crucial to his early artistic development.
• In 1900, Picasso’s first exhibition took place in Barcelona, and that fall he
went to Paris for the first of several stays during the early years of the
century. Picasso settled in Paris in April 1904, and soon his circle of
friends included Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Gertrude and Leo
Stein, as well as two dealers, Ambroise Vollard and Berthe Weill.
His style developed from the Blue Period (1901–04) to the Rose Period (1905) to
the pivotal work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), and the subsequent evolution
of Cubism from an Analytic phase (ca. 1908–11), through its Synthetic phase
(beginning in 1912–13). Picasso’s collaboration on ballet and theatrical productions began in 1916. Soon thereafter, his work was characterized by neoclassicism and a renewed interest in
drawing and figural representation.From 1925 into the 1930s, Picasso was involved to a certain degree with the Surrealists, and from the fall of 1931 he was especially interested in
making sculpture. In 1932, with large exhibitions at the Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, and the
Kunsthaus Zürich, and the publication of the first volume of Christian Zervos’s catalogue raisonné, Picasso’s fame increased markedly. By 1936, the Spanish Civil War had profoundly affected Picasso, the expression of which culminated in his painting Guernica (1937, Museo
Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid). While a sort of false peace prevailed in l938-39, Picasso painted the monumental Night Fishing at Antibes, perhaps the most mysterious and
mesmerizing of all his works. Painted after a visit to the seaside town with his mistress, Dora Maar, the artist presents men in rowboats spearing fish at night with the help of
flashlights.

Syntax
I know little of art analysis, but I can tell that the painting seems to be organized in terms of areas of low activity and high activity. There is little activity in the lower portion of the painting, where there is only water, whereas right above that we have the four largest figures, all of whom are suggested to be very active. Above that there is less action, but still some. Generally speaking, there is more activity on the left side of the painting than the right. The painting has few straight lines.

The rest of an eclectic analysis would continue here, with phenomenological and referential discussion as well as another open viewing, and then a meta-critique. Most of those elements can be partially seen in the first open viewing.