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artists: Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso (1881- 1973)
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter who is widely acknowledged to be the most important artist of the 20th century. He experimented with a wide range of styles and themes in his long career, most notably inspiring 'Cubism'.
Pablo Ruiz was born in Malaga on 25 October 1881, the son of an art teacher. He later adopted his mother's maiden name of Picasso. He grew up in Barcelona, showing artistic talent at an early age. In the early 1900s, he moved between France and Spain before finally settling in Paris in 1904. There he experimented with a number of styles and produced his own original ones, reflected in his 'Blue' and 'Rose' periods.
Picasso worked closely with the French artist Georges Braque in the development of this style. Picasso's next major innovation, in 1912, was 'Collage', attaching pieces of cloth, newspaper or advertising to his paintings.
In 1937 he produced 'Guernica', a painting inspired by the destruction of the town in northern Spain by German bombers during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso supported the Republican government fighting General Francisco Franco, and never returned to Spain after Franco's victory.
Picasso's work
Picasso's work is characterised by 'periods'. He moved from style to style, experimenting with painting and sculpture and becoming involved with the Surrealist movement.
Early Works
Picasso was recognized as an artistic prodigy at an early age. His early work was characterised by academic realism.
In 1897 his realism became tinged with Symbolist influence, in a series of landscape paintings in non naturalistic violet and green tones. His exposure to the work of Rossetti, Steilen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch, combined with his admiration for favourite old masters such as El Greco, led Picasso to a personal version of modernism in his works of this period.
Blue Period
Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904) consists of somber paintings in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors. In his austere use of color and sometimes doleful subject matter—prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects—Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas.
"Femme Allongée Lisant" uses a cool colour scheme.
Rose Period
The Rose Period (1905–1907) is characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink colors, and again featuring many harlequins.
African-influenced Period
Picasso's African-influenced Period (1907–1909) was strongly influenced by African sculptures and artifacts.
In 1907 Picasso painted 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon', a revolutionary work that introduced a major new style - 'Cubism'.
Analytic Cubism
Analytic Cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed along with Braque. Analytic Cubists "analyzed" natural forms and reduced the forms into basic geometric parts to represent the natural world like the cylinder, sphere and the cone. Colour was almost non-existent except for the use of a monochromatic scheme that often included grey, blue and ocher.
Synthetic Cubism
Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919) is a further development of Cubism in which cut paper fragments—often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages—are pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art. Whereas analytic cubism was an analysis of the subjects (pulling them apart into planes), synthetic cubism is more of a pushing of several objects together.
Classicism and Surrealism
In the period following the upheaval of World War I Picasso produced work in a neoclassical style. This was a "return to order" evident with many European artists in the 1920s
During the 1930s, Picasso's work used the minotaur rather than the harlequinHis use of the minotaur came partly from his contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol, and appears in Picasso's Guernica.
Picasso was moved to paint the huge mural Guernica shortly after German planes, acting on orders from Spain's authoritarian leader Francisco Franco, bombarded the Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish civil war.
Later works
Picasso continued to produce a vast about of work until his death. experiementing with a range of styles.
Picasso Trivia
A man once criticized Picasso for creating unrealistic art. Picasso asked him: "Can you show me some realistic art?" The man showed him a photograph of his wife. Picasso observed: "So your wife is two inches tall, two-dimensional, with no arms and no legs, and no color but only shades of gray?"
The Guinness World Records names Picasso as the most prolific painter ever.
Picasso suffered from dyslexia
Picasso was also featured on an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Picasso Quotations
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
God is really only another artist, he made the elephant, giraffe and cat. He has no real style but keeps trying new ideas.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.
Everything you can imagine is real.
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
Picasso Links
| Cool Colours | Cubism | Pablo Picasso Museum |
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