Pablo Picasso cubism paintings with titles. Early works. Artist Pablo Picasso: childhood and years of study

04/24/2017 at 18:43 · Pavlofox · 1 700

The most famous paintings Picasso

Pablo Picasso is a recognized genius of the 20th century, his canvases are recognizable, and his style is difficult to confuse with other painters. One of the favorite themes in the artist’s work was the circus and its characters. The master liked to repeat that true painters are Rembrandt, Giotto, he’s just a clown. The most famous paintings by Picasso sold for huge sums of money, but the artist himself considered painting to be something like personal diary. During his long, almost century-long life, he never stopped creating.

10. Girl on the ball

"Girl on a Ball", painted in 1905, one of Picasso’s most legendary paintings dates back to the beginning of the artist’s rose period, coinciding with his move to Paris. New shades come into the master’s work: light pink, red, grayish-pearl, airy, which distinguishes new period from the previous one (blue). The mood also changes: if previously the topics chosen were sad and problematic, now simple motives of joy and delight in life appear. The painting “Girl on a Ball” is built on contrasts: the lightness, femininity, flexibility, and grace of an acrobat on a ball versus the stability, hardness, and masculinity of an athlete on a cube. Both artists are contrasted with the background: the girl will get off the ball at any moment or move further on it, while the sad landscape with a lonely horse will not change for a very long time, and perhaps never at all.

9. Absinthe drinker

« Absinthe lover" - One of the most sensational paintings by Picasso was painted in 1901; its theme was the favorite drink of fashionable bohemia - absinthe. Although the impression of this creation is very painful, one cannot fail to note the superbly chosen color palette: contrasting colors express the heroine’s internal struggle, her struggle with the outside world, contradictions, difficulties that arise along the way. The image in the picture reeks of loneliness and abandonment, it is angular, as if broken, the pose is constrained, and the overly large right hand seems to be fencing the woman off from the world, seeking solitude and protection. And only a slight sarcastic smile on the character’s lips tells us that this lady is still alive.

8. Avignon girls

"The Maidens of Avignon" The painting, painted in 1907, is one of the most typical examples of Cubism. It would seem that cubism is completely inappropriate where it is necessary to depict flexible female bodies, but Picasso manages to do this in such a way that no dissonance is felt when looking at the canvas. Despite the fact that the knees, faces, and breasts of the girls are depicted as angular, we understand that before us are priestesses of love. The prototype for them was real girls from a brothel in the Avignon quarter of Barcelona. Initially, the painting was supposed to contain other images personifying death, but later the artist left only images of women and fruits as a symbol of fertility. Here the challenge lies not in the topic, not in what is depicted, but in the form, the way it is depicted.

7. Three musicians


Well-known painting by Picasso "Three Musicians" written in the style of cubism. It’s not just musicians who are depicted in clownish robes; the artist symbolically depicted Guillaume Apollinaire with a clarinet, Max Jacob with an accordion, and himself with a violin. The characters seem to be pasted onto the canvas separately from each other, and the contours of their bodies seem to move in space, giving the image volume and dynamism. Despite its apparent simplicity, similarity to applique and small palette of colors, the painting is undoubtedly an outstanding work of art.

6. Blue nude

"Blue Nude" - This painting can be considered one of Picasso's most well-known canvases, despite the fact that it is one of his earliest paintings (1902). “Blue Nude,” as one can easily guess from the title and one glance at it, belongs to the blue period of the master’s work. It is difficult to say what the author wanted to convey with this work, whether he wanted it at all: the figure of a woman in a fetal position sits with her back to the viewer. Only by color and pose can one perceive a shade of despair, hopelessness, loneliness, nudity, not only in the literal but also figurative sense.

5. Dora Maar with a cat

"Dora Maar with a cat." The artist had a vibrant, passionate relationship with Dora Maar that lasted ten years; she was his muse more than once. Dora cannot be called tender and fragile; her femininity lies in mystery, strength, and extraordinary energy. The artist splashed out this energy on this, perhaps, the most recognizable painting by Picasso. The lady in the hat and sharp blue nails involuntarily evokes associations with representatives of the cat family, she exudes independence, rebellious disposition. A face depicted both in profile and full face with a deformed nose, mouth and eyes cannot be called beautiful, but it is difficult to forget. The image of a small black cat on a woman’s shoulder only emphasizes the brightness of Dora Maar’s character, a certain aggressiveness.

4. Seated woman. Maria Teresa Walter

« Seated woman. Maria Therese Walter" - One of Picasso's most famous paintings is inspired by another muse - Maria Theresa Walter. Female figure occupies almost the entire canvas, its outlines are heavy, rough and angular. The naked woman's face expresses deep thoughtfulness. Picasso strives to show the versatility of female nature, while deliberately forgetting about anatomy and the realistic depiction of the human body.

3. Guernica


"Guernica" is practically the most recognizable painting by Picasso, mainly because of its political meaning. With this painting, the master not only speaks a word against the Nazi bombing of Guernica (Spain) during civil war, but also depicts the image of war in general, with all the tragedies and suffering. The canvas reeks of physical pain, a sense of loss, destruction, death. Despite the sketchiness of the images of people, each of them is endowed with strong emotionality.

2. Girl in front of the mirror

"Girl in front of the mirror"- another very popular work Picasso is inspired by the already familiar Maria Therese Walter. The main idea of ​​the picture is that the girl sees in the mirror not exactly her own reflection, but something otherworldly, different. Bright contrasting colors emphasize the ambiguity of nature. Maria Teresa seems to see her true nature in the mirror, deformed, distorted, colored bright shades, is looking for new facets of herself.

1. Old guitarist

"Old Guitarist". The most recognizable works of Picasso are, for the most part, those written during the Blue Period of creativity. This picture is the clearest example of this. It was inspired by the suicide of the artist's friend, Carlos Casagemas. Cold blue expresses melancholy, frustration, withdrawal, the figure of the guitarist is hunched and compressed, grasping a large brown guitar. The size of the instrument and its color symbolically indicate that music is a way to escape from the problems of a cruel world and forget about poverty and even blindness.

What else to see:


Biography

Pablo Picasso- a great Spanish artist, cubist, sculptor, artist, remembered for the unique style of his paintings, who became the trendsetter of the subsequent fashion for cubism. Full name genius artist- Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Martir Patricio Ruiz.

Picasso, in tandem with George Braque, founded the so-called painting style - cubism. He had a significant influence on all world art.

The most early painting Pablo Picasso– Picadora, painted at the age of 8. He studied painting from his father, who was an art teacher. He studied at various art schools, including: the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, ​​the School in La Coruña. The first exhibition of paintings took place in Barcelona, ​​June 1989, at the Els Quatre Gats cafe.

Pablo became acquainted with the work of the Impressionists later, after he left for Paris. Already here, after the suicide of his best friend and as a result of depression, a period begins in his life, which later all art critics in the world will call Blue. This period of Picasso is characterized by despondency, symbols of death, old age, depression, melancholy, and sadness. Pictures that relate to blue period— Absinthe drinker, Date, Beggar old man with a boy. It was called blue due to the fact that blue shades predominate in the paintings of this period.

In 1904, when the great Spanish artist stays in Paris in a hostel for poor artists, the Blue Period gives way to pink. Sorrow and symbols of death are replaced by more joyful images - theater scenes, life stories of traveling comedians, the life of actors and acrobats.

Together with George Braque, around 1907, he became the founder cubism. The artist moved from the image to the analysis of form and components. Cubism in its own way rejected naturalism and, according to many art critics, was inspired by a fascination with African sculpture, which is distinguished by its angularity, grotesque forms, and characteristic ornaments. African sculpture influenced many movements fine arts, for example, in addition to Picasso, she helped form Fauvism.

In 1925, the cheerful paintings were replaced by the most difficult and difficult period in the artist’s life. Cubism develops into absolutely surreal and surreal images. His monsters and creatures, screaming and torn to pieces, are inspired by the outbreak of the surrealist revolution in painting and literature. Then there was the fear of fascism, which influenced his paintings: Fishing at night in Antibes, Maya and her doll, Guernica. WITH last picture, which depicts the horrors of war, is connected famous story. One day, a Nazi officer, seeing a photograph of Guernica, asked Picasso: “Did you do this?”, to which he replied: “You did this!”

After the war, a new mood takes possession of him. A series of pleasant events - love for Françoise Gilot, the birth of two children - give him a happy and bright period in his work, filled with life and family happiness.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso died in 1973 at his villa in France. The great artist was buried near the castle, which belonged to him personally and was called Vovenart.

Pablo Picasso is a Spanish painter, the founder of Cubism, and according to a 2009 poll by The Times, the most famous artist of the 20th century.

Was born future genius October 25, 1881 in Andalusia, in the village of Malaga. Father Jose Ruiz was a painter. Ruiz did not become famous for his work, so he was forced to get a job at a local fine art museum as a caretaker. Mother Maria Picasso Lopez belonged to a wealthy family of grape plantation owners, but from childhood she experienced firsthand what poverty was, since her father abandoned the family and moved to America.

When Jose and Maria had their first child, he was christened with the name Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Crispin Crispignano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, in which, according to tradition, revered ancestors and Catholic saints were indicated. After the birth of Pablo, two more girls appeared in the family - Dolores and Conchita, whom their mother loved less than her adored son.

The boy was very handsome and talented. At the age of 7, he already began to help his father in painting canvases. At the age of 13, Jose allowed his son to complete a large part of the work and was very surprised by Pablo's skill. After this incident, the father gave all his art supplies to the boy, and he himself stopped writing.

Studies

In the same year, the young man entered the Academy of Arts in Barcelona. It was not without difficulty that Pablo managed to convince the teaching staff of the university of his professional worth. After three years of study, having gained experience, the young student is transferred to Madrid to the prestigious San Fernando Academy, where for six months he studies the techniques of work of Spanish artists, and. Here Picasso creates the paintings “First Communion”, “Self-Portrait”, “Portrait of a Mother”.

Due to his wayward character and free lifestyle, the young painter was unable to stay within the walls educational institution, therefore, having dropped out of school, Pablo sets out on his own. By that time, his close friend was the equally obstinate American student Carles Casagemas, with whom Pablo repeatedly visited Paris.

The friends devoted their first trips to studying the paintings of Delacroix, Toulouse Lautrec, as well as ancient Phoenician, Egyptian frescoes, and Japanese engravings. The young people made acquaintances not only with bohemians, but also with wealthy collectors.

Creation

For the first time, Pablo begins to sign his own paintings with the pseudonym Picasso, maiden name to his mother. In 1901, a tragedy occurred that left its mark on the artist’s work: his friend Carles commits suicide due to unhappy love. In memory of this event, Pablo creates a number of paintings that are usually attributed to the first “Blue Period”.

The abundance of blue and gray flowers in the paintings is explained not only by the depressed state of the young man, but also by the lack of funds for oil paint other shades. Picasso paints the works “Portrait of Jaime Sabartes”, “Rendezvous”, “Tragedy”, “Old Jew with a Boy”. All paintings are permeated with a feeling of anxiety, despondency, fear and melancholy. The writing technique becomes angular, torn, perspective is replaced by the rigid contours of flat figures.


In 1904, despite the lack of finances, Pablo Picasso decided to move to the capital of France, where new impressions and events awaited him. The change of residence gave impetus to the second period of the artist’s work, which is usually called “Pink”. The cheerfulness of the paintings and their plot lines were largely influenced by the place where Pablo Picasso lived.

At the base of the Montmartre Hill stood the Medrano Circus, whose performers served as a model for the young artist’s works. In two years, a whole series of paintings was painted: “Actor”, “Seated Nude”, “Woman in a Shirt”, “Acrobats. Mother and Son", "Family of Comedians". In 1905, the most significant painting of this period, “Girl on a Ball,” appeared. After 8 years, the painting was acquired by Russian philanthropist I. A. Morozov, who brought it to Russia. In 1948, “Girl on a Ball” was exhibited at the Museum. , where it is still located.


The artist gradually moves away from depicting nature as such; modernist motifs appear in his work using pure geometric shapes, which make up the structure of the depicted object. Picasso intuitively approached a new direction when he created a portrait of his admirer and philanthropist Gertrude Stein.

At the age of 28, Picasso painted the painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” which became the predecessor of works painted in the style of cubism. The portrait ensemble, which depicted naked beauties, was met with a large stream of criticism, but Pablo Picasso continued to develop the direction he had found.


Since 1908, the paintings “Can and Bowls”, “Three Women”, “Woman with a Fan”, “Portrait of Ambroise Vollard”, “Factory in Horta de San Juan”, “Portrait of Fernanda Olivier”, “Portrait of Kahnweiler”, “ Still life with a wicker chair”, “Bottle of Pernod”, “Violin and guitar”. New works are characterized by a gradual increase in poster-like images, approaching abstractionism. Finally, Pablo Picasso, despite the scandal, begins to earn good money: paintings painted in a new style bring profit.

In 1917, Pablo Picasso was given the opportunity to collaborate with Russian Seasons. Jean Cocteau proposed to the ballet master the candidacy of a Spanish artist as the creator of sketches for the scenery and costumes of new productions. To work for a while, Picasso moved to Rome, where he met his first wife Olga Khokhlova, a Russian dancer, the daughter of an emigrated officer.


The bright period of his life was also reflected in the artist’s work - for a while, Picasso moved away from cubism and created a number of canvases in the spirit of classical realism. These are, first of all, “Portrait of Olga in an Armchair”, “Bathers”, “Women Running on the Beach”, “Children’s Portrait of Paul Picasso”.

Surrealism

Fed up with the life of a wealthy bourgeois, Pablo Picasso returns to his former bohemian existence. The turning point was marked by the painting in 1925 of the first painting in the surrealist manner, “Dance.” The distorted figures of the dancers and the general feeling of morbidity settled in the artist’s work for a long time.


Dissatisfaction with his personal life was reflected in Picaso’s misogynistic paintings “Mirror” and “Girl in Front of a Mirror”. In the 30s, Pablo became interested in creating sculptures. The works “Reclining Woman” and “Man with a Bouquet” appeared. One of the artist’s experiments is the creation of illustrations in the form of engravings for the works of Ovid and Aristophanes.

War period

During the years of the Spanish revolution and war, Pablo Picasso was in Paris. In 1937, the artist created the painting “Guernica” in black and white tones commissioned by the Spanish government for the World Exhibition in Paris. A small town in northern Spain was completely razed to the ground in the spring of 1937 by German aircraft. The people's tragedy is reflected in collective images a dead warrior, a grieving mother, people cut into pieces. Picasso’s symbol of war is the image of the bull Minotaur with large, indifferent eyes. Since 1992, the canvas has been kept in the Madrid Museum.


At the end of the 30s, the paintings “Night Fishing in Antibes” and “Crying Woman” appeared. During the war, Picasso did not emigrate from German-occupied Paris. Even in cramped living conditions, the artist continued to work. Themes of death and war appear in his paintings “Still Life with a Bull Skull”, “Morning Serenade”, “Slaughterhouse” and the sculpture “Man with Lamb”.

Post-war time

The joy of life again inhabits the master’s paintings created in the post-war period. The colorful palette and bright images were embodied in the cycle of life-affirming panels that Picasso created for private collection in collaboration with the artists Paloma and Claude Already.


Picasso's favorite subject of this period became ancient greek mythology. It is embodied not only in the master’s paintings, but also in ceramics, which Picasso became interested in. In 1949, the artist painted the canvas “Dove of Peace” for the World Peace Congress. The master creates variations in the style of cubism on the themes of painters of the past - Velazquez, Goya,.

Personal life

From a young age, Picasso was constantly in love with someone. In his youth, models and dancers became the aspiring artist’s friends and muses. Young Pablo Picasso experienced his first love while studying in Barcelona. The girl's name was Rosita del Oro, she worked in a cabaret. In Madrid, the artist met Fernando, who became his faithful friend for several years. In Paris, fate brought young man with miniature Marcelle Humbert, whom everyone called Eva, but sudden death The girls separated the lovers.


While working in Rome with a Russian ballet troupe, Pablo Picasso marries Olga Khokhlova. The newlyweds got married in a Russian church on the outskirts of Paris, and then moved to a mansion on the seashore. The girl's dowry, as well as income from the sale of Picasso's works, allowed the family to lead the life of a wealthy bourgeois. Three years after the wedding, Olga and Pablo have their first child, son Paulo.


Soon Picasso becomes fed up with the good life and again becomes a free artist. He settles separately from his wife and begins dating a young girl, Marie-Therese Walter. From an extramarital union in 1935, a daughter, Maya, was born, whom Picasso never recognized.

During the war, the artist's next muse became a Yugoslav citizen, photographer Dora Maar, who with her creativity pushed the artist to search for new forms and content. Dora went down in history as the owner of a large collection of Picasso paintings, which she kept until the end of her life. Her photographs of the canvas “Guernica” are also known, which show the entire process of creating the painting step by step.


After the war, the artist met Françoise Gilot, who introduced a note of joy into his work. Children are born - son Claude and daughter Paloma. But in the early 60s, Jacqueline left the master because of his constant betrayals. The last muse and second official wife of the 80-year-old artist is the ordinary saleswoman Jacqueline Rock, who idolized Pablo and had a great influence on his social circle. After Picasso's death, 13 years later, Jacqueline could not stand the separation and committed suicide.

Death

In the 60s, Picasso devoted himself entirely to creating women's portraits. His last wife, Jacqueline Roque, poses for the artist as a model. By the end of his life, Pablo Picasso already had a multi-million dollar fortune and several personal castles.


Monument to Pablo Picasso

Three years before the death of the genius, a museum named after him was opened in Barcelona, ​​and 12 years after his death, a museum was opened in Paris. For my long creative biography Picasso created 80 thousand canvases, more than 1000 sculptures, collages, drawings, and prints.

Paintings

  • "First Communion", 1895-1896.
  • "Girl on a Ball", 1905
  • "Harlequin Seated on a Red Bench", 1905
  • "Girl in a Shirt", 1905
  • "Family of Comedians", 1905
  • "Portrait of Gertrude Stein", 1906
  • "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", 1907
  • "Young Lady", 1909
  • "Mother and Child", 1922
  • "Guernica", 1937
  • "Crying Woman", 1937
  • "Françoise, Claude and Paloma", 1951
  • "Man and woman with a bouquet", 1970
  • "Embraces", 1970
  • "Two", 1973

Pablo Picasso is not just one of the most famous artists XX century. His work, like a mirror, reflected almost all the trends in modern art.
Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in the south of Spain, in Malaga. His father, Jose Ruiz, came from an old but impoverished family, was an art teacher and at the same time performed decorative paintings of interiors. Picasso is the surname of her mother, who came from Italy, perhaps she had Gypsy or Jewish roots.
The first person who started teaching Pablo to draw was his father. Of Picasso's first works, portraits of his father have been preserved, in which he looks like Don Quixote. Since childhood, like all Spaniards, Picasso went to watch the tauromachy (bullfight). Bright, expressive image bullfighting in the future appeared more than once in his works, as well as in the works of other world famous Spaniards - Goya, Hemingway.
Picasso's genius revealed itself early: at the age of 10 he painted his first paintings, and at 15 he brilliantly passed the entrance exam to the Barcelona School Fine Arts(drawing a nude model in a day; this was a task for which a month was allotted). Picasso made three trips to Paris and settled there in 1904.
The styles of French impressionist artists, especially Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, influenced the formation of Picasso's creative style during this period. Picasso's "Blue Room" reflects the influence of these artists and shows the evolution of Picasso's work in "blue period", which is so named because various shades blues and blues dominated his work for several years. During this period, Picasso painted blind people, beggars, alcoholics and prostitutes. Their elongated bodies in the paintings are reminiscent of the works of the Spanish artist El Greco.
The paintings of this period are characterized by images of poverty, melancholy and sadness. Picasso believed that “he who is sad is sincere.” The same circle of images, starting from 1905, takes on a different coloring. It’s as if a ray of hope penetrates the souls of his heroes along with the appearance of lighter and more transparent colors in the colorful range of his paintings: pink, ash-pink, golden-pink tones join the lightened shades of blue.
After the works of the “blue period”, paintings "pink period" represent the world of circus performers and tramps (“Family of acrobats with a monkey”, “Girl on a ball”, “Family of comedians”). In his “pink” works, Picasso often depicts not just one or two people, but entire families, people connected not only by blood, but also by spiritual ties.
Cubism. In 1907, Picasso created a large panel “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”, the characters of which, the girls of a brothel in the Barcelona quarter of Avignon, appear as sexless creatures, some kind of frightening idols. The work combines different stylistic styles: the pink figures of the characters are geometrized, the faces of some of them are painted in a line-by-line manner imitating the techniques of African sculptors. "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" created a sensation; the film marked the beginning of many experiments. The taste for sharp, destructive deformation turned out to be the banner of the new century.
From 1907 to 1914, Picasso worked in such close collaboration with Braque that it is not always possible to establish his contribution to the different stages of the Cubist revolution. After the period of Cézannis, he paid attention to the transformation of forms into geometric blocks, dissecting them into planes and edges that continue in space. Perspective disappears, Picasso’s paintings are often reduced to puzzles. “Cubist secret writing” appears: encrypted phone numbers, house numbers, scraps of lovers’ names, street names, zucchini shops. The artist uses cubist techniques until 1923 (“Women running along the shore”). “Portrait of Ambroise Vollard” (gallery owner, collector) is made in the forms of analytical cubism. The portrait was purchased by I. A. Morozov in 1913 from Vollard himself.
Picasso's marriage to a ballerina Olga Khokhlova, the artist’s success in society - all this explains this return to figurativeness, while Picasso continued to paint cubist still lifes.
Along with the cycle of giantesses and bathers, numerous portraits of his wife and son Paul are some of the most captivating works written by the artist.
Contacts with surrealism. In 1925, one of the most difficult and uneven periods in Picasso’s work began. We find ourselves in an atmosphere of convulsions and hysteria, in a surreal world of hallucinations, which can be explained, in part, by the influence of the surrealist poets. For several years, Picasso's imagination created monsters, some creatures torn into pieces, inflated to the point of absurdity and formless, or embodying aggressively erotic images.
Picasso's engravings of Ovid's Metamorphoses and Aristophanes testify to the continuity of his classical inspiration. The theme of bulls arose in Picasso’s work during two trips to Spain: the image of the Minotaur appears in a beautiful series of engravings executed in 1935 (“Minotauromachy”). The image of the deadly bull ends the surreal period in Picasso's work, but at the same time defines the theme of the painting "Guernica", his most famous work, which he writes shortly after the destruction of a small Basque town by German aircraft. The horror that gripped Picasso at the threat of barbarism hanging over Europe, the fear of war and fascism, the artist did not express directly, but gave his paintings an alarming tone and gloom. Painting "Slaughterhouse" - the last tragic work Picasso.
In the fall of 1944, he joined the Communist Party. The dove, which has become a symbol of the peace movement (depicted on the poster of the World Peace Congress in Paris), is the most effective manifestation of the artist's political beliefs. In addition, this work contributed to the fact that Picasso became a legendary, world-famous personality.
Picasso's post-war work can be called happy; he gets close to the young man Françoise Gilot, whom he met in 1945 and who would give him two more children, thus providing themes for his many family paintings, powerful and charming. He leaves Paris for the south of France, discovers the joy of the sun, the beach, and the sea. The works created in 1945-1953, Mediterranean in spirit, are characterized by their idyll atmosphere and the return of ancient moods. Françoise Gillot was Picasso's wife for ten years and then wrote the book Life with Picasso. In 1955, Françoise Gilot and Picasso separated. This was the beginning of a severe moral crisis for the artist, which echoes in his works.
In 1956 he met with Jacqueline Rock, who in 1958 would become his wife and would inspire him very much for the series beautiful portraits. The works of the last fifteen years of the artist’s work are very diverse and uneven in quality.
Picasso died at his villa Notre-Dame-de-Vie on April 8, 1973.

Paintings by Pablo Picasso on mythological subjects:


The Minotaur and his wife, 1937

Minotaur, 1934

Three Graces, 1925

The Dying Minotaur, 1936

Dryad, 1908

Bagpipes of Pan, 1923

Other paintings by Pablo Picasso:



First Communion, 1895,
Picasso Museum, Barcelona

Dance with the Veil, 1907,
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Acrobat and youth
Harlequin,
1905

Harlequin, 1901,
Metropolitan,
New York

Tragedy, 1903, National
gallery, Washington

Life, 1903


Girl on the ball
1905, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Lady with a Fan, 1905,

Pierrot, 1918, Museum
contemporary art, New York

Friendship, 1908,
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Still life with flowers, 1908,
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Table in a cafe, 1912,
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Violin, 1912,
Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Violin and guitar, 1913,
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Minotaur, 1958


Three Graces, 1908

Science and Charity, 1897,
Picasso Museum, Barcelona


Absinthe drinker, 1901,
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Harlequin, 1915, Museum
contemporary art,
New York


Beggar old man with a boy
1903, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Lady with a Fan, 1909,
Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Portrait of Fernarda, 1909

Still life, 1908,
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Tools, 1912,
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

In the summer of 1912, Picasso created a series of images of musical instruments. Significant changes are taking place in his work, which will lead the artist to the next stage of cubism - synthetic cubism. In Picasso's musical still lifes, the influence of Paul Cézanne is noticeable. The artist decomposes musical instruments into individual constituent elements, showing them to the viewer simultaneously from different points of view. According to the author, the viewer himself must do some analytical work to recreate the image of the musical instrument.
Among the most beautiful early still lifes of the artist is a small oval painting “Musical Instruments”. Its decorative form, popular in French art XVII and the 18th centuries, has an internal harmony that gives it even greater grace. In the still life, Picasso uses a musical metaphor, according to which string instruments were a symbol of the perfection of art. The cubist forms of the still life resemble a mandolin, lute or guitar. There is no doubt that this pictorial game parodies the boring debate of Italian academics about which of the arts is the best. Picasso seems to expand the parameters of this dispute. Picasso's painting seems to take on the quality of music.
The artist also strives to convey the texture of the wood from which these musical instruments are made. From here there was a direct path to the art of collage, widely used by Picasso in subsequent periods of creativity.


Mother and Child, 1921

Reading a letter, 1921,
Picasso Museum, Paris


Bathers, 1918,
Picasso Museum, Paris

Three dancers, 1919

Seated Harlequin,
1923

Classic head, 1923,
National Gallery, Washington

Portrait of Olga Khokhlova
(Picasso's first wife), 1923,
National Gallery, Washington

Portrait of Olga Khokhlova
(Picasso's first wife), 1923


Portrait of Paul (son of Picasso)
dressed as Harlequin, 1924

Portrait of Paul
(son of Picasso), 1923

Girl in front
mirror, 1932

Portrait of Maria Teresa
Walter, 1937

Nude in a chair, 1932

Portrait of a Girl, 1938

Portrait of Maya (daughter
Picasso) with a doll, 1938,
Picasso Museum, Paris

Portrait of Françoise, 1946,
Picasso Museum, Paris


Portrait of Claude and Paloma
(Children of Picasso), 1950

Portrait of Claude
(son of Picasso), 1948

El Bobo

Sleeping peasants, 1919

Women running along the shore, 1922

Guernica, 1937, Prado, Madrid

Having lived almost his entire life in France, Pablo Picasso always remained a Spaniard. It was the blood connection with his homeland - Spain - that gave him the opportunity to feel so keenly and so convincingly, fiercely convey on canvas the entire horror of the tragedy of April 26, 1937, when the Nazis destroyed the city of Guernica in the Basque Country in one night.
In 1936, the Popular Front gave the Basque Country autonomy. Franco, who came to power, abolished it. The city where the unique monuments antiquity, history, a city with two thousand inhabitants was turned into ruins in one night...
It was the tragedy of Guernica that became the theme of a grandiose panel for the Spanish pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris, which the Republican government commissioned from Picasso. The artist completed the panel, measuring 3.5 meters in height and about 8 meters in length, in an incredibly short time - in less than a month. At the beginning of June, the panel exhibited in Paris received worldwide fame.
“Guernica” is the Apocalypse of the 20th century, in the terrible twilight of which a torn horse, a defeated rider, a bull, a mother with a murdered child and a woman holding a lamp in her hand are highlighted. This is not only a statement of a terrible tragedy, but also a premonition of new ones that the Second World War will bring. world war. The panel is elongated and built like a triptych. In its center is a triangle, the vertex of which is a lamp. The composition is precise in its architectonics, which collapses before our eyes, turns into nothingness, into chaos. Instead of the sun, Picasso depicted an electric light bulb. And he replaced the full sound of earthly colors with a strict range of black, gray and white. The images of Guernica resemble timeless phantoms and hallucinations. This is a bundle of pain and suffering. Picasso, who thoroughly knew the principles of visual systems, used elements in Guernica linear perspective, and the overlay of transparent planes adopted in cubism, and the dismemberment of volumes that the surrealists loved.
“Guernica” is a prophetic picture, but it contains not only a premonition of terrible catastrophes, but also a beacon of faith. Looking at this panel, I remember the words of Paul Eluard: “Despair fans the fire of hope.”


Portrait of Ambroise Vallor, 1910, Pushkin Museum, Moscow / (Ambroise Vollar - gallery owner, collector, art connoisseur,
friend of artists. The portrait was made in the forms of analytical cubism and was acquired by I. A. Morozov in 1913 from Vollard himself.)

Laymen often throw remarks at avant-garde artists that they don’t know how to draw, so they depict cubes and squares. Picasso can serve as an illustration of the falsity and primitiveness of such a statement. WITH youth he knew how to reflect nature on paper with maximum similarity to the original. The talent, which was fortunately placed in a creative environment from birth (the father of the most prominent figure in twentieth-century painting was an art teacher and decorator), developed at lightning speed. The boy began to draw almost before he spoke...

"Blue" period

The “Blue Period” is perhaps the first stage in Picasso’s work, in relation to which one can speak of the master’s individuality, despite the still sounding notes of influences. The first creative takeoff was provoked by a long depression: in February 1901, in Madrid, Picasso learned of the death of his close friend Carlos Casagemas. On May 5, 1901, the artist came to Paris for the second time in his life, where everything reminded him of Casagemas, with whom he had recently discovered the French capital. Pablo settled in the room where he spent his last days Carlos, who started an affair with Germaine, because of whom his friend committed suicide, communicated with the same circle of people. One can imagine into what a complex knot the bitterness of loss, the feeling of guilt, the feeling of the proximity of death were intertwined for him... All this in many ways served as the “garbage” from which the “blue period” grew. Picasso later said: “I plunged into blue when I realized that Casagemas was dead”...

"Pink" period

The “Rose Period” was relatively short-lived (from the autumn of 1904 to the end of 1906) and not entirely homogeneous. However large number the paintings are marked by a light color, the appearance of pearl-gray, ocher and pink-red tones; New themes appear and become dominant - actors, acrobats, athletes. The Medrano Circus, located at the foot of the Montmartre hill, certainly provided a lot of material for the artist. Theatricality in many of its manifestations (costumes, accentuated gestures), the variety of types of people, beautiful and ugly, young and adults, seemed to return the artist to the world of several transformed, but real forms, volumes, spaces; the images were again filled with life, in contrast to the characters of the “blue period”...

"African" period

The first work that turned Picasso’s brushes towards new figurativeness was the 1906 portrait of Gertrude Stein. Having rewritten it about 80 times, the artist despaired of embodying the writer in classical style. The artist is clearly ripe for something new creative period, and following nature ceased to interest him. This canvas can be considered the first step towards deformation of the form.

In 1907, Picasso first encountered archaic African art at an ethnographic exhibition at the Trocadéro Museum. Primitive idols, figurines and masks, where the generalized form was freed from the flickering of details, embodied the powerful forces of nature, from which primitive man didn't distance himself. The ideology of Picasso, who invariably put art above all else, coincided with the powerful message embedded in these images: for ancient people, art did not serve to decorate everyday life, it was witchcraft that tamed incomprehensible and hostile spirits that controlled earthly life full of danger...

Cubism

Before Cubism European art One of the main ones has always been the problem of life-likeness. For several centuries art has evolved without questioning this task. Even the impressionists, who opened a new chapter in the history of painting, dedicated to light, to capturing a fleeting impression, also solved the question: how to capture this world on canvas.

The impetus for the development of a new language of art, perhaps, was the question: why draw? By the beginning of the 20th century. the basics of “correct” drawing could be taught to almost anyone. Photography was actively developing, and it became clear that fixed, technical images would become its domain. The artists faced the question: how can art remain alive and relevant in a world where figurative images Are they becoming more accessible and easier to replicate? Picasso's answer is extremely simple: in the arsenal of painting there are only its own specific means - the plane of the canvas, line, color, light, and they do not necessarily need to be put at the service of nature. The outside world only gives impetus to the expression of the individuality of the creator. The refusal to plausibly imitate the objective world opened up incredibly wide opportunities for artists. This process took place in several directions. In the field of “liberation” of color, Matisse was perhaps the leader, while Braque and Picasso, the founders of Cubism, were more interested in form...

"Classical" period

The 1910s turned out to be quite difficult for Picasso. In 1911, the story of the purchase and storage of figurines stolen from the Louvre surfaced, which demonstrated to Picasso the limitations of his own moral, human strength: he turned out to be unable to directly resist the pressure of the authorities, and to maintain devotion to friendship (at the first interrogation, he tried to renounce even the very fact of acquaintance with Appolinaire, “thanks to” whom he became involved in this unpleasant incident). In 1914, the First World War began and it became clear that Picasso was not ready to fight for France, which became his second homeland. This also separated him from many of his friends. Marcelle Humbert died in 1915...

Surrealism

Dividing creativity into periods is a standard way of squeezing art into frames and putting it into shelves. In the case of Pablo Picasso, an artist without a style or, more accurately, an artist of many styles, this approach is conventional, but traditionally applied. The period of Picasso’s proximity to surrealism fits chronologically into the framework of 1925 – 1932. As a rule, each stylistic stage in the artist’s work was dominated by a certain Muse. Married to ex-ballerina Olga Khokhlova, who longed to “recognize herself on canvases,” Picasso turned from cubism, which he invented together with Georges Braque, to neoclassicism.

When did the young blonde come into the artist’s life?