"Blue Period" in the work of Pablo Picasso.
old guitarist
This period was the initial stage in the creative career of the artist. It is in the works of this period that the individual style of the painter is visible, although it was then that he was most influenced by other masters.
Celestina
Early in 1901, Pablo was stricken by the news of the death of his very dear friend, Carlos Casagemas. This news led the artist into a long sadness and depression. After half a year, he nevertheless decided to once again come to Paris, where literally everything reminded him of a close friend, who not so long ago for the first time showed him all the delights of the capital of France. Picasso decided to live in a room in which, due to unrequited love, his friend Carlos committed suicide. He also began a relationship with a woman, because of which a friend passed away, began to spend a lot of time with the people around Carlos. All this made him feel like a friend, which filled his mind with gloomy thoughts about how close each of us is to death. All this marked the beginning of the very dark period of his work, which was later called blue. Picasso himself claimed that he was literally imbued with blue after realizing that his friend was no more.
A few months after arriving in Paris, the artist opened his first exhibition in this city. However, at that time he did not yet paint "blue" paintings, his works were more like impressionism. Picasso tried to add volume to his paintings by dressing objects in dark outlines. Over time, his paintings became more and more monotonous, more and more often they were all made in blue tones. The first painting of this period was "Portrait of Jaime Sabartes".
Fear, despair, loneliness, suffering - these words were the perfect description for the works of the "blue period". Confirmation of this can be found in Picasso's self-portrait, created at that time. Then he was going through a difficult period, no one was buying paintings, he often rushed between Spain and France, each of which put pressure on him in its own way. Spain at that time was in a difficult position, people were begging, constantly migrating. Perhaps all this also affected the artist and at that time he painted the painting “An Old Jew with a Boy”, which depicts hungry poor people. In his homeland, Picasso spent a lot of time painting. Quite often, he painted new paintings on top of old ones, since he did not have money to buy new canvases, so many possible masterpieces of painting were lost. But on the other hand, it can be imagined as getting rid of old memories of a loved one.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Picasso left Spain with his friend K. Casajemas and came to Paris. Here, Pablo is closely acquainted with the works of the French Impressionists, in particular, A. Toulouse-Lautrec and E. Degas, who in due time will have a serious influence on the development of the artist's creative thought.
Unfortunately, in love with a French woman and rejected by her, Casajemas commits suicide in February 1901. The boundaries of real life and art for Picasso have always been inseparable, and this tragic event, which deeply shocked the artist, was reflected in his subsequent works.
Since 1901, multi-color paints have been leaving Picasso's paintings, giving way to shades of a blue-green palette. The "blue" period begins in the artist's work.
A deep, cold and gloomy range of emerald, blue, blue, green colors and shades perfectly conveys the main themes of Picasso's work of this period - human suffering, death, old age, poverty and despondency. The paintings are filled with images of the blind, prostitutes, beggars and alcoholics, saturated with a sense of longing and hopelessness. During this period, the artist, without stopping to lead a bohemian lifestyle, works, creating up to three paintings a day. The Blue Room (1901), The Blind Man's Breakfast (1903), The Beggar Old Man with the Boy (1903), The Tragedy (1903), The Two (1904) and, of course, the famous Absinthe Drinker (1901 ) - all these are vivid examples of paintings of the "blue" period.
In 1904, Picasso settled in Bateau Lavoir - the famous hostel in Montmartre, where many artists found their refuge. At this time, he meets his muse - the model Fernando Olivier, who became the inspiration for many of his famous works. And acquaintance with the poets M. Jacob and G. Apollinaire gives a new theme, embodied in his paintings - the circus and the life of circus artists. So, gradually, new colors begin to penetrate into the life and work of the artist. The “pink” period of the master’s artistic searches is replacing the “blue” one.
At this time, the artist turns to more cheerful tones - pink, smoky pink, golden pink, ocher. The heroes of the paintings are clowns, acrobats, gymnasts, harlequins: "Acrobat and young Harlequin" (1905), "Family of acrobats with a monkey" (1905), "Jester" (1905). The theme of the romantic life of wandering artists is revealed in one of his most iconic and recognizable paintings - "Girl on a Ball" (1905).
Later, at the end of the "pink" period, the artist paints paintings in the spirit of the ancient heritage - "Girl with a goat" (1906), "Boy leading a horse" (1906).
The "blue" and subsequent "pink" periods of Pablo Picasso's creative life became an expression of his quest to convey the mood and his vision of the world with the help of color.
Acrobat and young Harlequin 1905
The "blue" and "pink" periods in the work of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso are the time of the formation of the artist's individual style. At this time, there is a departure from impressionism, the inheritance of the styles of Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas and other famous artists.
"Blue" period (1901-1904)
Self-portrait. 1901
It got its name because of the general tonality of the paintings, made in blue and blue colors, united by the mood of despair and loneliness. One of the first works of this period were "Self-Portrait" (1901) and "Absinthe Drinker" (1901). Most of the heroes of Picasso's paintings are representatives of the lower strata of society, destitute, sick or vicious people. Among the later "blue" works, it is worth noting the paintings "Head of a Woman" (1902-1903), "Breakfast of a Blind Man" (1903), "An Old Jew with a Boy" (1903), "Ironer" (1904). From an aesthetic point of view, it is important to move to new ways of depicting, excluding unnecessary details from the composition, and a number of other decisions that allow the viewer to focus on the emotions caused by the picture. At the same time, these works by Picasso cannot be fully considered original, because. they partially use motifs and techniques characteristic of Spanish painting. The formation of such an emotional mood of the paintings was strongly influenced by life realities. The beginning of the "blue" period is associated with the suicide of a close friend of the artist Carlos Casagemas in 1901. The proximity of death, loneliness, forced return to Barcelona in 1903 due to lack of funds influenced the depressiveness of the paintings.
"Girl on the ball" - the balance between life and death
Girl on the Ball. 1905
This painting, painted in 1905, is a characteristic work of the transitional period. The time when pain, despair and suffering in the artist's paintings are gradually disappearing, they are replaced by an interest in living human joys, embodied by circus performers and artists. The content of this work, built on contrasts (movement and static, girl and athlete, lightness and heaviness, etc.), fully corresponds to the symbolism of the transition between the bitterness of death and the joys of life.
"Pink" period (1904 - 1906)
A gradual transition to the “pink” period in his work was outlined as early as 1904, when positive changes began to occur in the artist’s life: moving to the seething center of avant-garde life - to the hostel of artists in Montmartre, falling in love with Fernande Olivier, meeting many interesting people, among whom were Matisse and Gertrude Stein. The main theme of the works of this period, made in pink, red, pearl tones, are the comedians of the Medrano circus. The paintings are distinguished by a variety of subjects, dynamics and movement. At the same time, the artist continues to develop an individual style, formed back in the "blue" period. The works “Acrobat and Young Harlequin” (1905), “Family of Comedians” (1905), “Jester” (1905), etc. belong to this time. At the end of the “pink” period, images inspired by ancient myths appear in Picasso’s paintings: “Girl with a goat "(1906)," A boy leading a horse "(1906), there is an interest in the image of the nude" Combing "(1906), A naked boy (1906).
“I plunged into blue when I realized that Casajemas was dead,” Picasso later admitted. “The period from 1901 to 1904 in the work of Picasso is usually called the “blue” period, since most of the paintings of this time are painted in a cold blue-green scale, exacerbating the mood of fatigue and tragic poverty. What was later called the "blue" period was multiplied by images of sad scenes, paintings full of deep melancholy. At first glance, all this is incompatible with the enormous vitality of the artist himself. But remembering the self-portraits of a young man with huge sad eyes, we understand that the paintings of the "blue" period convey the emotions that owned the artist at that time. A personal tragedy sharpened his perception of the life and grief of suffering and disadvantaged people.
It is paradoxical, but true: the injustice of the life order is keenly felt not only by those who have experienced the yoke of life's hardships since childhood, or even worse - the dislike of loved ones, but also by quite prosperous people. Picasso is a prime example of this. His mother adored Pablo, and this love became an impenetrable armor for him until his death. The father, who constantly experienced financial difficulties, knew how to help his son with all his might, although he sometimes moved in a completely different direction than don Jose indicated. The beloved and prosperous young man did not become an egocentric, although the atmosphere of the decadent culture in which he was formed in Barcelona, it would seem, contributed to this. On the contrary, he felt with great force the social disorder, the huge gap between the poor and the rich, the injustice of the structure of society, its inhumanity - in a word, everything that led to the revolutions and wars of the 20th century.
“Let's turn to one of the central works of Picasso of that time - to the painting “The Old Beggar with a Boy”, made in 1903 and now in the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin. Two sitting figures are depicted on a flat neutral background - a decrepit blind old man and a little boy. The images are given here in their sharply contrasting opposition: the face of an old man, wrinkled, as if fashioned by a powerful play of chiaroscuro, with deep cavities of blind eyes, his bony, unnaturally angular figure, the breaking lines of his legs and arms and, as opposed to him, wide-open eyes on a gentle , the softly modeled face of a boy, the smooth, flowing lines of his clothes. A boy standing on the threshold of life, and a decrepit old man, on whom death has already left its mark - these extremes are united in the picture by some tragic commonality. The boy's eyes are wide open, but they seem as unseeing as the terrible gaps in the old man's eye sockets: he is immersed in the same joyless meditation. The dull blue color further enhances the mood of sorrow and hopelessness, which is expressed in the sadly concentrated faces of people. The color here is not the color of real objects, nor is it the color of real light flooding the space of the picture. With the same dull, deadly cold shades of blue, Picasso conveys the faces of people, their clothes, and the background on which they are depicted.
The image is lifelike, but there are many conventions in it. The proportions of the old man's body are hypertrophied, an uncomfortable posture emphasizes his brokenness. Thinness is unnatural. The boy's facial features are oversimplified. “The artist does not tell us anything about who these people are, what country or era they belong to, and why they are sitting on this blue earth, huddled together like this. Nevertheless, the picture speaks volumes: in the contrasting opposition of the old man and the boy, we see both the sad, bleak past of one, and the hopeless, inevitably gloomy future of the other, and the tragic present of both of them. The very mournful face of poverty and loneliness looks at us with its sad eyes from the picture. In his works created during this period, Picasso avoids fragmentation, detailing and strives in every possible way to emphasize the main idea of the depicted. This idea remains common to the vast majority of his early writings; just like in The Old Man Beggar with the Boy, it consists in revealing the disorder, the mournful loneliness of people in the tragic world of poverty.
In the “blue” period, in addition to the paintings already mentioned (“Old Beggar with a Boy”, “Mug of Beer (Portrait of Sabartes)” and “Life”), “Self-Portrait”, “Date (Two Sisters)”, “Head of a Woman” were also created , Tragedy, etc.
There is hardly a person on the planet who is not familiar with the name Pablo Picasso. The founder of cubism and an artist of many styles in the 20th century influenced the fine arts not only in Europe, but throughout the world.
Artist Pablo Picasso: childhood and years of study
One of the brightest was born in Malaga, in a house on Merced Square, in 1881, on October 25th. Now there is a museum and fund named after P. Picasso. Following the Spanish tradition at baptism, the parents gave the boy a rather long name, which is an alternation of the names of saints and the closest and most revered relatives in the family. Ultimately, he is known by his very first and last. Pablo decided to take his mother's surname, considering his father's too simple. The boy's talent and craving for drawing manifested itself from early childhood. The first and very valuable lessons were given to him by his father, who was also an artist. His name was Jose Ruiz. He painted his first serious picture at the age of eight - "Picador". We can safely say that it was with her that the work of Pablo Picasso began. The father of the future artist received a job offer as a teacher in La Coruña in 1891, and soon the family moved to northern Spain. In the same place, Pablo studied at the local art school for a year. Then the family moved to one of the most beautiful cities - Barcelona. Young Picasso was 14 years old at the time, and he was too young to study at La Lonja (School of Fine Arts). However, the father was able to ensure that he was admitted to the entrance exams on a competitive basis, with which he coped brilliantly. After another four years, his parents decided to enroll him in the best advanced art school at that time - "San Fernando" in Madrid. Studying at the academy quickly bored the young talent; in its classical canons and rules, he was cramped and even bored. Therefore, he devoted more time to the Prado Museum and the study of its collections, and a year later he returned to Barcelona. The early period of his work includes paintings painted in 1986: “Self-portrait” by Picasso, “First Communion” (it depicts the artist’s sister Lola), “Portrait of a Mother” (pictured below).
During his stay in Madrid, he first made where he studied all the museums and the paintings of the greatest masters. Subsequently, he would come to this center of world art several times, and in 1904 he would finally move.
"Blue" period
This time period can be seen as precisely at this time, his individuality, still subject to extraneous influence, begins to appear in the work of Picasso. A well-known fact: the talent of creative natures manifests itself as brightly as possible in difficult life situations. This is exactly what happened to Pablo Picasso, whose works are now known to the whole world. The takeoff was instigated and came after a long depression caused by the death of close friend Carlos Casagemas. In 1901, at the exhibition organized by Vollard, 64 works by the artist were presented, but at that time they were still full of sensuality and brightness, the influence of the Impressionists was clearly felt. The “blue” period of his work gradually entered into its legal rights, manifesting itself with rigid contours of figures and the loss of three-dimensionality of the image, moving away from the classical laws of artistic perspective. The palette of colors on his canvases is becoming more and more monotonous, the emphasis is on blue. The beginning of the period can be considered "Portrait of Jaime Sabartes" and Picasso's self-portrait, written in 1901.
Paintings of the "blue" period
The key words during this period for the master were such words as loneliness, fear, guilt, pain. In 1902, he will return to Barcelona again, but he will not be able to stay there. The tense situation in the capital of Catalonia, poverty on all sides and social injustice result in popular unrest, which gradually engulfed not only all of Spain, but also Europe. Probably, this state of affairs had an impact on the artist, who this year is working fruitfully and extremely hard. Masterpieces of the “blue” period are created in the Motherland: “Two sisters (Date)”, “An old Jew with a boy”, “Tragedy” (photo of the canvas above), “Life”, where the image of the deceased Casagemas once again appears. In 1901, the painting "The Absinthe Drinker" was also painted. It traces the influence of the popular at that time passion for "vicious" characters, characteristic of French art. The theme of absinthe sounds in many paintings. The work of Picasso, among other things, is full of drama. The hypertrophied hand of a woman, with which she seems to be trying to defend herself, catches the eye especially clearly. At present, The Absinthe Drinker is stored in the Hermitage, having got there from a private and very impressive collection of Picasso's works (51 works) by S. I. Shchukin after the revolution.
As soon as the opportunity arises to go again, he decides to use it without hesitation and leaves Spain in the spring of 1904. It is there that he will encounter new interests, sensations and impressions, which will give rise to a new stage in his work.
"Pink" period
In the work of Picasso, this stage lasted for a relatively long time - from 1904 (autumn) until the end of 1906 - and was not entirely uniform. Most of the paintings of the period are marked by a light range of colors, the appearance of ocher, pearl-gray, red-pink tones. Characteristic is the appearance and subsequent dominance of new themes for the artist's work - actors, circus performers and acrobats, athletes. Of course, the vast majority of the material was provided to him by the Medrano circus, which in those years was located at the foot of Montmartre. The bright theatrical setting, costumes, behavior, variety of characters seemed to have returned P. Picasso to the world, albeit transformed, but real forms and volumes, natural space. The images in his paintings again became sensual and filled with life, brightness, as opposed to the characters of the "blue" stage of creativity.
Pablo Picasso: works of the "pink" period
The paintings that marked the beginning of a new period were first exhibited at the end of the winter of 1905 in the Serurier Gallery - these are "Seated Nude" and "Actor". One of the recognized masterpieces of the "pink" period is "The Family of Comedians" (pictured above). The canvas has impressive dimensions - in height and width of more than two meters. The figures of circus performers are depicted against the blue sky, it is generally accepted that the harlequin on the right side is Picasso himself. All the characters are static, and there is no inner closeness between them, everyone was bound by inner loneliness - the theme of the entire "pink" period. In addition, the following works by Pablo Picasso are worth noting: “Woman in a Shirt”, “Toilet”, “Boy Leading a Horse”, “Acrobats. Mother and son”, “Girl with a goat”. All of them demonstrate to the viewer the beauty and serenity rare for the artist's paintings. A new impetus to creativity happened at the end of 1906, when Picasso traveled around Spain and ended up in a small village in the Pyrenees.
African period of creativity
P. Picasso first encountered archaic African art at the thematic exhibition of the Trocadero Museum. He was impressed by pagan idols of primitive form, exotic masks and figurines, embodying the great power of nature and distanced from the smallest details. The artist's ideology coincided with this powerful message, and as a result, he began to simplify his characters, making them look like stone idols, monumental and sharp. However, the first work in the direction of this style appeared back in 1906 - this is a portrait of the work of Pablo Picasso of the writer. He rewrote the picture 80 times and already completely lost faith in the possibility of embodying her image in a classical style. This moment can rightfully be called transitional from following nature to deformation of the form. It is enough to look at such canvases as "Naked Woman", "Dance with Veils", "Dryad", "Friendship", "Bust of a Sailor", "Self-Portrait".
But perhaps the most striking example of the African stage of Picasso's work is the painting "Avignon Girls" (pictured above), on which the master worked for about a year. She crowned this stage of the artist's career and largely determined the fate of art in general. For the first time, the canvas saw the light only thirty years after it was written and became an open door to the world of the avant-garde. The bohemian circle of Paris literally split into two camps: “for” and “against”. The painting is currently in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Cubism in the work of Picasso
The problem of the uniqueness and accuracy of the image remained in first place in European fine art until the moment when cubism burst into it. The impetus for its development is considered by many to be the question that arose among artists: “Why paint?” At the beginning of the 20th century, almost anyone could be taught a reliable image of what you see, and photography was literally on the heels, which threatened to completely and completely displace everything else. Visual images become not only believable, but also accessible, easily replicated. Cubism of Pablo Picasso in this case reflects the individuality of the creator, refusing a plausible image of the outside world and opening up completely new possibilities, the boundaries of perception.
Early works include: “Pot, glass and book”, “Bathing”, “Bouquet of flowers in a gray jug”, “Bread and fruit bowl on the table”, etc. The canvases clearly show how the artist’s style changes and acquires increasingly abstract features towards the end of the period (1918-1919). For example, "Harlequin", "Three Musicians", "Still Life with Guitar" (pictured above). Associating the viewers of the master's work with abstractionism did not suit Picasso at all, the very emotional message of the paintings, their hidden meaning, was important to him. In the end, the style of cubism created by him himself gradually ceased to inspire and interest the artist, opening the way for new trends in creativity.
classical period
The second decade of the 20th century was quite difficult for Picasso. So, 1911 was marked by a story with stolen figurines from the Louvre, which did not put the artist in the best light. In 1914, it turned out that, even after living in the country for so many years, Picasso was not ready to fight for France in the First World War, which divorced him from many friends. And the following year, his beloved Marcel Humbert died.
The return of a more realistic Pablo Picasso in his work, whose works were again filled with readability, figurativeness and artistic logic, was also influenced by many external factors. Including a trip to Rome, where he was imbued with ancient art, as well as communication with the Diaghilev ballet troupe and acquaintance with the ballerina Olga Khokhlova, who soon became the second wife of the artist. The beginning of a new period can be considered her portrait of 1917, which in some way was of an experimental nature. The Russian ballet of Pablo Picasso not only inspired the creation of new masterpieces, but also gave his beloved and long-awaited son. The most famous works of the period: Olga Khokhlova (pictured above), Pierrot, Still Life with Jug and Apples, Sleeping Peasants, Mother and Child, Women Running on the Beach, Three Graces .
Surrealism
The division of creativity is nothing but the desire to put it on the shelves and squeeze it into a certain (stylistic, temporal) framework. However, to the work of Pablo Picasso, who is adorned by the best museums and galleries in the world, such an approach can be called very conditional. If you follow the chronology, then the period when the artist was close to surrealism falls on 1925-1932. It is not at all surprising that the muse visited the master of the brush at every stage of his work, and when O. Khokhlova wished to recognize herself on his canvases, he turned to neoclassicism. However, creative people are fickle, and soon the young and very beautiful Maria Teresa Walter, who at the time of their acquaintance was only 17 years old, entered the life of Picasso. She was destined for the role of a mistress, and in 1930 the artist bought a castle in Normandy, which became her home, and his workshop. Maria Teresa was a faithful companion, steadfastly enduring the creative and loving throwing of the creator, maintaining friendly correspondence until the death of Pablo Picasso. Works of the Surrealist period: "Dance", "Woman in an armchair" (pictured below), "Bather", "Nude on the beach", "Dream", etc.
World War II period
Sympathy for Picasso during the hostilities in Spain in 1937 belonged to the Republicans. When Italian and German aircraft destroyed Guernica, the political and cultural center of the Basques, in the same year, Pablo Picasso depicted the city in ruins on a huge canvas of the same name in just two months. He was literally seized with horror from the threat that hung over the whole of Europe, which could not but affect his work. Emotions were not expressed directly, but embodied in the tone, its gloom, bitterness and sarcasm.
After the wars died down, and the world came to a relative balance, restoring everything that had been destroyed, Picasso's work also acquired happier and brighter colors. His canvases, written in 1945-1955, have a Mediterranean flavor, are very atmospheric and partly idealistic. At the same time, he began to work with ceramics, creating many decorative jugs, dishes, plates, figurines (the photo is presented above). The works that were created in the last 15 years of his life are very uneven in style and quality.
One of the greatest artists of the twentieth century - Pablo Picasso - died at the age of 91 in his villa in France. He was buried near the Vovenart castle that belonged to him.
