The great artist Pablo Picaso

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

History
Portrait of artist Pablo Picasso. A Spanish painter who is widely acknowledged to be the most important artist of the 20th century. He experimented with a wide range of styles and themes in his long career, most notably inspiring 'Cubism'. Pablo Ruiz was born in Malaga on 25 October 1881, the son of an art teacher. He grew up in Barcelona, showing artistic talent at an early age. In the early 1900s, he moved between France and Spain before finally settling in Paris in 1904. There he experimented with a number of styles and produced his own original ones, reflected in his 'Blue' and 'Rose' periods.

Pablo Picaso

Blue Period

The years from 1901-1904, were known as Picasso's Blue Period. These were difficult years for him personally. Picasso was very poor at this time. He often didn't have enough money to buy oil paints and canvas to do his painting. Also, he was very sad and depressed due to the death of his good friend, Carlos Casagemas. Carlos committed suicide because of a broken heart after the loss of a love.During this time, Picasso's paintings and sketches were mostly done in shades of blue, and he often painted subjects that were very needy, lonely, and unhappy. The mood of his paintings and sketches during this period were gloomy and showed strong emotions. His subjects included blind beggars, drunks, and women from a prison in Paris as his models. A few of his most famous paintings in his blue period were Blue Room, The Absinthe Drinker, and La Vie.

Rose period

Picasso's Rose Period began in the year 1904, and lasted until the year 1906. He was about 24 years old when he went to France. This Rose Period started when he met Ferande Oliver, the first of many companions to effect the theme, style, and mood of his work. During this time the colors in his paintings became brighter and warmer, and the moods become happier. He often used the colors pink and red. During his rose period Picasso often painted subjects.

In 1907 Picasso painted 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon', a revolutionary work that introduced a major new style - 'Cubism'. Picasso's next major innovation, in 1912, was 'Collage', attaching pieces of cloth, newspaper or advertising to his paintings

Cubism

Cubism was developed between about 1908 and 1912 in a collaboration between and Pablo Picasso. Their main influences are said to have been Tribal Art (although Braque later disputed this) Georges Brauque and the work of Paul Cezanne. The key concept underlying Cubism is that the essence of an object can only be captured by showing it from multiple points of view simultaneously.Cubism had run its course by the end of World War I, but among the movements directly influenced by it were Orphism, Precisionism, Futurism, Purism, Constructivism, and, to some degree, Expressionism.

End of Picasso
Picasso now moved from style to style, experimenting with painting and sculpture and becoming involved with the Surrealist movement. In 1937 he produced 'Guernica', a painting inspired by the destruction of the town in northern Spain by German bombers during the Spanish Civil War.

On 8 April 1973, sadly he died of a heart attack at his home near Cannes.

Image taken frome google.