It may interest you to know that a lot of
cubism and indeed modern art has been attributed to the contributions of one
man – a genius of the twentieth century, and an artist whose legacy and life of
art in the recent centuries have remained almost unmatched. Pablo Picasso was
born in Spain in 1881, he was an infant genius who was recognised and helped
early in life by his father who was also his teacher. The small Museo de
Picasso is situated in Barcelona; it is a place that is strictly devoted to
housing especially some of Picasso’s early works which also includes even a
range of very realistic casts of ancient sculptures.
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| Pablo Picasso (photo by Herbert List) |
As a youngster Picasso was a non conformist
of some sort, and he began frequenting the Barcelona cafes where intellectuals often
gathered. Very soon he went to Paris which is regarded as the capital of art
and familiarised himself thoroughly with the works of masters like Gustave
Courbet, Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec. Their sketchy styles of work inspired him
a great deal; later he was off, and returned to Spain, then to France, then
again to Spain all in the period 1899 – 1904.
Before Pablo Picasso discovered cubism he had
experimented with, and gone through fascinating different styles such as realism,
caricature, the Blue Period and the Rose Period. His blue period for instance ran
from 1901-1904, and featured predominantly a blue palette, and his works then
focussed mainly on depicting the lives of outcasts, prostitutes and beggars. At
this period of his career, he produced some of his first works of sculpture in
this style including a painting piece he did depicting his childhood friend - the
Spanish poet Casagemas, who had committed suicide. And this work is a permanent
collection of Cleveland's Museum of Art, La Vie.
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| 'Guernica', painting by Pablo Picasso |
The painting started off as a self portrait
but ended up being that of his late bosom friend. Another popular work of Picasso’s
of this period is the 1903 piece in the Metropolitan which he called ‘The Blind
Man's Meal’. Another example is the very lyrical and mysterious piece housed in
the Toledo Museum of Art titled ‘the haunting Woman with a Crow’ (1903).
