Creative Periods Graphics Sculpture Ceramics Collage Themes Muses Museums Biography Blog Quotes Photos Videos Monuments Search Buy Posters
12 works of different years
8 last comments on March 01, Valery, Russia: Who would not say: like, not like Picasso, and when you see in the Hermitage "Woman in blue", I realize that ...
February 24, Lika, Berlin : Apparently, this sad period of the artist's life ended with a move to Paris, the capital of the arts. ...
February 11, Max : Elusive look absolutely ...
February 11, Max, the mediator can see!)) ...
February 11, IECM, when he cubism in all its glory ...
February 11, Max : Like I want to learn)) ...
February 11, Buyanto, Ulan Ude and it is amazing to pass on the canvas of human experiences ...
08 February, kareoke, weeke: do not forget about Andersen, and his naked king.
a masterpiece is the Birth of Venus or the Night Watch, or the Trial of Paris Cranach, ...
12 photos from different years
Blog 30/01 - About Impressionism 21/01 Scientists found Picasso's fingerprints 31/12 - About the painting "The Family of Comedians" (1905) 25/12 - Cut the picture into 150 thousand pieces or give it to the museum?
14/12 The Raventos family and Picasso's youth
Biography
1.
Childhood and years of study (1881-1900)
Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in the city of Malaga, the Anadalusian province of Spain.
At his baptism, Picasso received the full name of Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Crispin Crispignano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz and Picasso - which, according to Spanish custom, was a series of names of revered saints and relatives of the family.
Picasso is his mother's surname, which Pablo took, because his father's surname seemed too ordinary to him, besides, Picasso's father, Jose Ruiz, was an artist himself.
Pablo showed an early talent for drawing.
Already from the age of 7, he studied drawing techniques from his father, who first instructed him to add pigeon paws to his paintings.
But one day, entrusting the thirteen year old Pablo to finish a rather large still life, he was so impressed by his son's technique that, according to legend, he gave up painting himself.
At the age of 13, Pablo Picasso brilliantly entered the Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts.
It took Picasso a week to prepare for the exam, which usually took students a month.
He impressed the commission with his skill and was accepted into the Academy despite his young age.
Picasso's father, together with his uncle, decided to send Pablo to the San Fernando Academy in Madrid, which was considered at that time the most advanced art School in all of Spain.
So, Pablo came to Madrid in 1897 at the age of 16.
However, classes at the Art School did not last long, less than a year, and Pablo was captured by all the other delights of Madrid life, as well as studying the works of artists who impressed him at that time - Diego Velasquez, Francisco Goya, and especially El Greco.
A collection of early works by Picasso is located in Barcelona, in the Picasso Museum.
The most famous of them: the First communion (1896) - large painting depicting Picasso's sister, Lola, "self Portrait" (1896), "Portrait of mother" (1896).
As an adult, and while visiting the exhibition of children's drawings, Picasso said, "At that age I drew like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like them."
While studying in Madrid, Picasso made his first tour to Paris - the then recognized European capital of art.
There, for several months, he visited all museums without exception, studying the paintings of great masters: Delacroix, Toulouse Lautrec, Van Gogh, Gauguin and many others.
He was also interested in the art of the Phoenicians and Egyptians, Gothic sculpture, Japanese engraving.
Pablo was interested in absolutely everything.
At the same time, in the first years of his life in Paris, he met the collector and dealer of paintings Ambroise Vollard, poets Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire and many others.
He visited Paris again in 1901 and in 1902 and finally moved there by 1904.
2. The "Blue" period (1901-1904)
The" blue " period includes works created between 1901 and 1904.
Gray blue and blue green are deep cold colors, the colors of sadness and despondency, are constantly present in them.
Picasso called blue "the color of all colors".
The frequent subjects of these paintings are emaciated mothers with children, tramps, beggars, blind people.
The most famous works of this period: "Life" (1903), "the Breakfast of a blind man" (1903), "Lean meal" (1904), "the absinthe drinker" (1901), "Date" (1902), "Mother and child" (1903), "the old Beggar with a boy" (1903, "The Old Ironing Woman" (1904), "Two" (1904).
more detailed
3.
The "Pink" period (1904-1906)
The "Pink period" is characterized by more cheerful tones - ochre and pink, as well as stable themes of images - harlequins, wandering actors, acrobats ("The Family of Comedians" (1905), "The Acrobat and the Young Harlequin" (1905), "The Fool" (1905).
Fascinated by the comedians who became models of his paintings, he often visited the Medrano circus; at this time, the harlequin is a favorite character of Picasso.
In 1904, in Picasso, he met the model Fernande Olivier, who inspired him to create many significant works of this period.
They lived in the center of bohemian Parisian life and the mecca of the Parisian artists Bateau Lavoir.
This strange dilapidated building with dark staircases and winding corridors was the home of a very diverse company: artists, poets, merchants, janitors...
Here, in utter poverty on the verge of poverty and indescribable creative disorder, Picasso constantly painted his Fernando and searched for his way.
The famous " Girl on the Ball "(1905) is attributed to the transitional paintings between the "blue" and" pink " periods.
The artist plays on the contrast and balance of forms or lines, gravity and lightness, stability of instability.
Also at the end of the "pink period" appeared "antique" paintings - "A boy leading a horse" (1906), "A Girl with a goat" (1906) and others.
more detailed
4.
The "African" period (1907-1909)
In 1906, Picasso worked on a portrait of Gertrude Stein.
He rewrote it about eighty times and, according to the memoirs of Gertrude Stein herself, as a result, Picasso said to her in a rage: "I stopped seeing you when I look at you." and he left work on the portrait.
This was a turning point in his work and from here began the path of Picasso from the image of specific people to the image of a person as such and to the form as an independent structure.
Picasso needed confirmation of his path in the general development of world art and new impressions to gain new creative energy, and the discovery of a whole layer of African culture by science at that time served as an impetus for the artist's creativity.
He was especially interested in African sculpture and masks, he considered them endowed with magical power and found in them a sensual simplicity of forms.
Most likely, it was these "African influences" that determined the final version of the portrait .
In 1907, the famous "Avignon girls" appeared.
The artist worked on them for more than a year for a long time and carefully, as he had not worked on his other paintings before.
The first reaction of the public is shock.
Matisse was furious.
Even most of my friends didnot accept this job.
"It feels like you wanted to feed us with tow or give us gasoline to drink," said the artist Georges Braque, a new friend of Picasso.
The scandalous painting, the name of which was given by the poet A. Salmon, was the first step of painting on the way to Cubism, and many art critics consider it the starting point of modern art.
5. Cubism (1909-1917)
In "cubic" period Picasso distinguish several stages.
"Cezanne" cubism, represented in the works "Cans and bowls" (1908), "the Three women" (1908), "Woman with a fan" (1909) and the other is characterized by the "Cezanne" tones of ochre, green, brown, but more blurry, muddy and the use of simple geometric forms which is used to build the image.
"Analytical" cubism: the object is divided into small parts that are clearly separated from each other, the object form seems to blur on the canvas.
"Portrait of Ambroise Vollard" (1910), "The Factory in Horta de San Juan" (1909), "Portrait of Fernande Olivier" (1909), "Portrait of Kahnweiler" (1910).
At the stage of "synthetic" Cubism, Picasso's works take on a decorative and contrasting character.
The paintings mostly depict still lifes with various objects: musical instruments, sheet music, bottles of wine, smoking pipes, cutlery, posters ...
Also, fearing the transformation of Cubism into purely abstract aesthetic exercises understandable only to a narrow circle, Picasso and Braque used real objects in their works: wallpaper, sand, ropes, etc.
Works of the "synthetic" period: "Still Life with a wicker chair" (1911-1912), A Bottle of Pernod (a table in a cafe)" (1912) "Violin and guitar" (1913).
Despite the rejection of Cubism by the majority, Picasso's paintings are very well bought.
Finally, the impoverished existence ends, and in September 1909, Pablo and Fernanda moved to a spacious and bright workshop at 11 Clichy.
Of course, Picasso did not forget to move his obligatory mess: fancy bottles and vases, guitars, an old carpet, paintings by famous artists - Matisse, Cezanne, Rousseau, a collection of African masks...
He always said that he was terrified of harmony and good taste.
He bought things that he liked, not caring about how they looked together.
In the autumn of 1911, Picasso broke up with Fernanda.
His new muse was Eva (Marcel Umber), with whom he lived and created his cubical e works in Montparnasse and Avignon.
One of the works dedicated to Eve is "Naked, I love Eve" (1912).
Then came the sad years: the war, mobilization and parting with many friends, an unexpected illness and the tragic death of Eve.
6. Neoclassicism (1918-1925)
In the spring of 1917, the poet Jean Cocteau, who collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev, invited Picasso to make sketches of costumes and scenery for the future ballet.
The artist went to work in Rome, where he fell in love with one of the dancers of the Diaghilev troupe - Olga Khokhlova.
They married in 1918, and in 1921 they had a son, Paul.
At this time, his canvases are very far from Cubism; they have clear and understandable forms, light colors, regular faces.
The most expressive picture of these years is "Portrait of Olga in an Armchair" (1917).
Picasso was actively criticized for changing the style, as before he was criticized for Cubism.
He responded to these accusations in an interview: "Whenever I want to say something, I speak in the manner in which, in my opinion, it should be said."
Other paintings of the "realistic" period: "Bathers" (1918), "Women running on the beach" (1922), "A Child's Portrait of Paul Picasso" (1923).
7. Surrealism (1925-1936)
"Beauty will be convulsive, or it will not be," said Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism, a trend in art that set itself the task of comprehending the true depths of artistic creativity through penetration into the world of dreams and the unconscious.
In 1925, Picasso painted the painting "Dance".
Aggressive, painful, with deformed figures, it reflects a difficult period in the artist's family life and at the same time proclaims a new turning point in his work.
Picasso is close to the Surrealists, but he always has his own way.
Works of this period: "A Bather opening a booth" (1928), "Figures on the Beach" (1931), "A Woman with a Flower" (1932), etc.
On a cold January day in 1927, Picasso met seventeen year old Maria Theresa Walter.
He bought the Chateau Boisgelou for her and there she became his only model and the heroine of several of his famous works, for example, "The Mirror" (1932, private collection), "The Girl in front of the Mirror" (1932, Museum of Modern Art, New York); the sculpture "Woman with a Vase" was also made from her (now it stands on the artist's grave)).
In 1935, Maria Teresa gave birth to a daughter, Maya, but by 1936, Picasso had separated from both women, although he was not officially divorced from Olga Khokhlova until her death in 1955.
In 1930-1934, Picasso was fond of sculpture and created a number of sculptural works in the spirit of surrealism: "A Woman Lying Down" (1932), "A Man with a Bouquet" (1934), as well as with the help of his Spanish friend, the sculptor Julio Gonzalez, builds various abstract metal structures.
In the same 30s, he created a number of engravings of illustrations for Ovid's Metamorphoses (1930) and the works of Aristophanes (1934), indicating that the classics have always been a strong source of inspiration for him.
8. The war in Spain.
Guernica.
World War II (1937-1945)
Since the 1930s, such a key theme and image as the bull, the Minotaur, has appeared in Picasso's work.
The artist creates a number of works with this character ("Minotauromachia", 1935), while Picasso interprets the myth of the Minotaur in his own way.
For Picasso, the bull, the Minotaur are destructive forces, war and death.
The apogee of the development of this topic was the famous Picasso painting "Guernica" (1937).
Guernica is a small Basque town in northern Spain, almost wiped off the face of the earth by German aviation on May 1, 1937.
This huge (almost eight meters in length and three and a half in height) monochrome (black, white, gray) painting was first exhibited in the republican pavilion of Spain at the World Exhibition in Paris.
Once the Gestapo raided Picasso's house.
A Nazi officer, seeing a photo of Guernica on the table, asked: "Did you do this?".
"No," the artist replied, " you did it."
During the same period, the series of monsters "Dreams and Lies of General Franco" (1937) was created (in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Picasso supported the Republicans and opposed the supporters of General Franco) and a number of other paintings on similar topics: "Night Fishing in Antibes" (1939), "The Crying Woman" (1937) (he painted the last picture with Dora Maar, a Yugoslav woman photographer whom Picasso met in 1936; she became famous for capturing the stages of Picasso's work on "Guernica").
During the Second World War, Picasso lived in France, where he became close to the Communist Resistance members (in 1944, Picasso even joined the French Communist Party).
At this time, he created such paintings with the same leitmotif of the bull, war and death: "Still Life with a Bull's skull" (1942), "Morning Serenade" (1942, Nats. the Museum of Modern Art, Pompidou Center, Paris), " The Slaughterhouse "(1944-1945, the Museum of Modern Art, New York) and the sculpture" The Man with the Lamb " (1944), which was subsequently installed in front of the old Romanesque cathedral on the shopping square of the city of Vallauris in the south of France.
9. Post war period (1945-1960e)
Already in peacetime, in 1946, Picasso made a picturesque ensemble of 27 panels and paintings for the castle of the princely Grimaldi family in Antibes a resort town on the Mediterranean coast of France.
The panel in the first hall is called "The Joy of Being" and the whole series is designed in the same spirit of harmony with nature and being images of fauns, naked girls, centaurs, fairy tale creatures…
In 1946, Picasso met a young artist Francoise Gilot and moved with her to the Grimaldi Castle.
Francoise soon gives him a son, Claude, and a daughter, Paloma.
The painting "Flower Woman"is dedicated to Francoise.
(In 1953, Francoise ran away from Picasso with two children because of his complex nature and constant infidelities, the artist was hard going through this separation, which was reflected in a number of his works of that time - for example, in a series of ink drawings depicting a disgusting old dwarf buffoonishly contrasting with a young and beautiful girl).
In 1949, Picasso painted his famous "Dove of Peace" on the poster of the World Congress of Peace Supporters in Paris, and in 1951 he created a political picture "The Massacre in Korea" (Picasso Museum, Paris).
Since 1947, Picasso has lived in the south of France, in the city of Vallauris, where in 1952 he painted the walls of the old chapel with allegorical symbols of war and peace and himself calls it all "The Temple of Peace".
In Vallauris, Picasso took up ceramics.
He creates his favorite characters centaurs, fauns, bulls, pigeons, women, makes anthropomorphic jugs.
Until now, in this town in the south of France, the so called "ceramic workshops" have been preserved, which continue to keep the "Picasso" brand and replicate products invented by the artist.
In 1958, the already recognized and famous artist created a monumental composition "The Fall of Icarus"for the UNESCO building in Paris.
In 1961, almost 80 year old Picasso marries 34 year old beauty Jacqueline Rock.
She inspires him to create a series of portraits in which you can see her chiseled profile of the sphinx.
He buys a villa in Cannes for her and himself.
In the 1950s, Picasso painted various variations on the themes of famous masters Velasquez, Goya, Manet in a free scandalous Cubist manner: "Girls on the banks of the Seine.
According to Courbet" (1950, Art Museum, Basel), " Algerian women.
According to Delacroix" (1955), " Menin.
According to Velasquez" (1957), " Breakfast on the grass.
According to Manet" (1960).
10. The last years (late 60s 1973)
In his later work, the artist often turns to a female portrait (portraits of Jacqueline Rock).
Jacqueline remains the last and faithful woman of Picasso and takes care of him, already ill, blind and hard of hearing, until his death.
Picasso died on April 8, 1973 at the age of 92, a multi millionaire, in the city of Mougins in France and is buried near the Vauvenargues castle that belonged to him.
He left behind more than 80 thousand works (according to other sources, about 20 thousand).
About death, Picasso himself said: "I think about Death all the time.
She is just a woman who will never leave me."
During the artist's lifetime, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona was opened in 1970 (the paintings for this museum were given by Picasso himself), and in 1985, through the efforts of the artist's heirs, the Picasso Museum in Paris was already created, with more than 200 paintings, more than 150 sculptures and several thousand drawings, collages, prints, documents.
The work of Picasso radically influenced the course of the development of art and culture throughout the XX century.
And at world auctions, more and more new, still little known works of the famous master from his vast heritage are still being found and put up for sale.
Copying of the article in part or in full is allowed only if there is a direct link to this site
TOP 5 according to the site statistics
A girl on a balloon, 1905
Guernica, 1937
The absinthe lover, 1901
The Maidens of Avignon, 1907
Portrait of the artist's mother, 1896
All illustrations, photos, texts and other materials on the site www.pablo ruiz picasso.ru intended for non commercial use only.
Copying of texts is prohibited.
All rights are protected by law.
