Who Was Pablo Picasso? by Michael Gaglione

Who was Pablo Picasso. Well Christian name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito. I think for the purposes of this paper we shall call him Pablo. Pablo was born in Málaga, a city in Spain. He was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López. Ruiz and Picasso were also added to his already long name due to Spanish custom Spanish custom. Picasso and Ruiz provided Pablo with a middle-class type of life. Pablo's mother was a professor of art. Pablo's father was a painter who painted birds and deer along with other types of game. Having artistic parents like his no doubt helped shape him into the famous artist he would later become. It is ironic that Pablo became famous for his paintings because his first word was "piz," which is short for lapiz which means pencil in Spanish. Naturally his parents taught Pablo their formal art training from an early age. His father taught him figure drawing and oil painting. Pablo's mother also taught him and believed in classical training. This meant practice and copying of the so called masters of art and drawing of the human from live models. Pablo naturally became more concerned with his art then his school work. In 1891 Pablo and his family moved to La Coruna so that his father could teach at the School of Fine Arts. During that time Pablo's father happened upon his son painting over one of his unfinished sketches of a pigeon. Instead of becoming angry Pablo's father merely observed his sons technique and concluded that his thirteen-year-old sons’ abilities had surpassed his own. He later vowed never to paint again. In 1895 Pablo’s seven-year old sister Conchita passed away of diphtheria. This was a very traumatic even for Pablo and soon after Pablo and his family moved to Barcelona. Pablo’s father taught at the School of Fine Arts there as well. Realizing his son’s potential Pablo's father requested that the academy allow his son, Pablo, to take the entrance exam for the advanced students. At the tender age of thirteen Pablo completed the exam in a week. Pablo's parent bought him an apartment close to home so that he could work alone. Pablo's father checked up on him often and was constantly critiquing his sons work. In 1897 Pablo's father decided to send his son to the Royal Academy of San Fernando, a prestigious art school. Pablo was only 16. Pablo did not succeed in class however and stopped attending his classes.
Pablo later went on to study art in Spain. Along with his studies he began to travel. His travels brought him to Paris in 1900. Paris France was considered the art capital of the world then. Pablo decided to stay in France with his new friend Max Jacob. Max was a poet and a journalist and helped Pablo to learn French and understand its' Literature. They lived together during 1900 in France. They were so poor that Pablo had to burn his art just to keep the apartment they lived in warm. About one year later in 1901 Pablo moved to Madrid, Spain. There he founded a paper called Arte Joven (young art) with his friend Francisco Soler. The magazine only had five published issues. Pablo contributed most of the art to the magazine. After about a year in Spain he started to travel in between Barcelona and Paris. During this time he worked on what is now called his "blue period." Pablo’s "blue period is said to have lasted from 1901-1904. I like to call it his depressed period. Most of his work was like singing the blues with a paint brush. He painted depressing pictures and scenarios, most of the time with a blue or green tint. The subjects of his paintings were normally just as depressing as his use of color, ranging anywhere from prostitutes to homeless people. My personal favorite piece from the "blue period" is "the old guitarist." This is a painting of what looks like an either dead or very depressed old man trying to play guitar. His body language portrays a complete lack of interest in the guitar however. Painted in 1903, Pablo painted it after the suicide of his close friend Carlos Casagemas. I like to think that this old man with a guitar played all day and fell asleep as a result. Another aspect that seems to throw off the angle that he is sitting at and his strange body language is the background. It’s very difficult to tell where he is exactly. I believe he is leaning up against a building located close to a large body of water. Another aspect of the painting that caught my attention, even thought its not that important, Pablo did not paint the strings of the guitar. An interesting fact about the original painting is that it started out as a woman sitting upright looking straight out of the canvas. In some parts of the painting it almost seems like it was detail deliberately added, like the old mans neck area. A ghostly figure can still be seen even in the digital copies of his work. I have circled her eyes and drawn her jaw line in to make it more apparent.
It was 1904 when he met Fernande Olivier during a storm in Barcelona. She was a Bohemian artist and became his mistress. This marked the beginning of Pablo’s "Rose Period." Olivier was featured in many of Pablo’s Rose Paintings. Even though Pablo’s "blue period" is much more popular the art world looks at his "rose period" as being much more important. It was during his rose period that he is said to have developed a lot of his stylistic means that would define Picasso. Much like Pablo's "blue period" his rose period included lots of warm reds, pinks, and yellows. This period lasted from about 1904 through 1907. Many of his pieces were of circus performers. His mistress at the time enjoyed the circus so Pablo frequented the circus. My favorite Rose period work is "woman with crow." When I first saw this painting I thought the woman was wearing football pads. It is still unclear to me whether Pablo deliberately over exaggerated the woman’s shoulders or if she is in a chair that matches her outfit. It's an extremely odd picture as well. I have never heard of anyone keep a pet crow or even managing to tame one so that you get as close to it as this woman does. She almost appears to be kissing the crow on the head and stroking the crow with her long boney fingers. She is the kind of lady you would expect to find in Alabama and not France. The crow is also portrayed in an interesting manner. At first glance you might not even realize it was a crow because almost no features, excluding the crows’ feet, are painted on the crow. When I first saw this painting I thought it was a cat. What creepy old lady doesn't have a cat? It is all these strange lack of details that makes Pablo’s work so unique. While this is my favorite piece from Pablo's rose period it doesn’t coincide with the other painting he was doing during that time. As I said before most of his subjects were circus performers and other people from that venue of life.
At the end of 1907 Pablo began to paint in the manner and style for which he is so famous for, cubism. The spark that lit the creative fire for Pablo's cubism was African art and artifacts. He began to try to emulate the box faces of African masks. Pablo also began to work with and along side Georges Braque. The two of them began to compliment and inspire each other. What they created is called Analytic Cubism. Analytic Cubism used monochrome browns and neutral colors. By far one of Pablo's most famous cubism paintings is Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The African influence is very present in the faces of the women, or whatever they are. It almost seems like he painted everything but the faces and then returned to paint them after completing the rest of the painting. The painting also plays heavily with perspective. When I say plays, I mean it makes it crazy looking. When you first look at the painting you might not even realize that the figures are naked. He painted their bodies in such a manner that contradicts everything we think of when we think of the naked human figure. He gave them hard edges and box lines. The breasts even resemble boxes. The woman in the top right corner even has a box for a breast. The manner in which he shaded it makes me think she has a hole in her chest. I personally think the painting itself is terrible, but it’s so terrible that it required skill to make it as terrible as it is. The more I look at this painting the less it makes sense. During Picassos Cubism phase the First World War came and went. Pablo chose not to fight for either side. Many consider this cowardice more then Pablo remaining neutral because of his political views. Pablo further developed his cubism style into Synthetic Cubism. This was more or less just another level of his original Analytic Cubism.
After 1920 Pablo returned to neoclassical art. During this time Pablo didn’t create many famous works of art. It wasn’t until 1930 when Pablo began creating note worthy art again. In 1937 Pablo created arguably one of his most famous works, Guernica. From looking at it you might never guess that it is depicting the Germans’ bombing of the Spanish during the Spanish Civil War. Once you realize that its depicting war the picture begins to make sense. Every face in the picture no matter how inhuman seems to be in agony. This speaks volumes about the effects of war. Another way of looking at the use of animals faces instead of human faces is the “inhumanities” of war. Pablo also captures, in my opinion, the chaos of war. You have to study the painting long and hard to absorb everything that’s going on. In my observation I believe that painting is taking place in a bomb shelter. You notice the light at the top of the paining and what seems to be a door way that everyone is clamoring through. There is even a random hand that appears next to the light that is holding a candle. There is also a broken knife resting in what seems to be a limp hand connected to a man who is lying on the floor. You could even say that the man with the knife is being trampled by everyone trying to run into the bomb shelter. Every time I look at this painting I see something I had not seen before. I believe this painting truly embodies how excellent Pablo Picasso was at his cubism style.
Some consider Pablo Picasso to be the greatest artist of the twentieth century. He truly has made a huge impact on the art world with his abstract style and rich paintings. Many people see his painting and say things like “I could do that.” It not until they sit down with some paint and a paint brush as gaze upon an empty canvas that they realize how unique Pablo's art truly is. The magic of Picasso is that as simple and sometimes as terrible as his paintings may seem to be, there has yet to be someone who can emulate or surpass the standard he has set for the modern art world in his field. Pablo work is now extremely valuable. Picassos’ Dora Maar Au Chat sold for 95.2 million dollars on may 3rd 2006. Even though it looks like a two year old painted it there is something quintessentially Picasso about it that sets it apart from all the rest.