The following year, Picasso would wrap up the Blue Period with his Portrait of Suzanne Bloch.
The man and woman to the left of the painting appear to be very concerned about their fate. Theirs seems to be a tragic love, doomed to some inevitably bleak conclusion, and the lovers seem to be aware of this. One possible interpretation is that the clothed woman is not meant to represent fate at all. Perhaps, instead, she is the wife of the artist in the picture, and the young pregnant woman he is with is his mistress. In that case, then the second woman has exposed the infidelity of the two young lovers, hence the distressed expression on the man's face. Still, another interpretation has it that the clothed woman is the mother of the girl that the artist is having an affair with. He has impregnated her daughter, and she has arrived to confront him and bring her daughter home. The girl stands by her lover, however, and the artist, in a gesture of defiance, must stand his ground in asserting his moral right to protect the girl in the face of parental authority.
What makes the painting a quintessential Picasso work, however, are the accomplished formal qualities one finds when examining it up close. Picasso's rendering of the two nude figures reveals a classical painterly understanding of the human anatomical form. With a restricted palette, Picasso nevertheless manages to capture the paleness of both figures' skin, the contortions in the male's stressed figure as he extends a finger in warning the clothed female, and the woman's protruding belly - all details rendered realistically and true to life. Perhaps the only "awkward" detail on the bodies is the clumsy squarishness of the feet. It could also be argued, however,...
(Pablo Picasso: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Also he was very a possessive individual who had a love-hate relation with his old friends. (Pablo Picasso: A Passion to Create) Even though Picasso was not a mathematician or a philosopher, the works he and Braque delivered between the years 1911 and 1918 was greatly bound to the perceptions of thinkers including Einstein and Alfred North Whitehead. Even before any Pop artists were
Pablo Picasso: Guernica "Guernica": How it Is Meant to Be Seen" "Guernica": How it Is Meant to Be Seen" Picasso's influences and culture, and artistic movements Before discussing Picasso's Guernica and, we must first understand the historical and political atmosphere of the time period in relation to Picasso's life and work. Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in Malaga, near the southern tip of Spain, on October 25, 1881. As a child, he displayed great artistic
Classicism and surrealism After the World War 1, neoclassical style of artwork was seen by Picasso. The paintings done by Picasso in this period were akin to the work done of Ingres and Raphael. It was in the 1930s when harlequin was substituted with minotaur. His utilization of minotaur was partially due to his connection with surrealists, who even now and then made use of it as their representation. During the Spanish
Picasso and Braque Picasso Pablo Picasso is often revered as the creative genius who initiated many of the trends, styles and movements in Twentieth Century art. His name is associated with experimentation and innovation in modern art which took painting and sculpture in new and exciting directions. It should also be borne in mind that Picasso was one of many artists during the early and middle Twentieth Century who worked to produce new
Girl With Mandolin According to John Golding, Pablo Picasso's 1910 rendition of Fanny Tellier entitled "Girl with Mandolin," is "not only one of the most beautiful, lyrical and accessible of all Cubist paintings, but is also a valuable document of the period." Golding's comment points to the historical significance of Picasso's development of the cubist style during the early twentieth century, a style that he and fellow artist Georges Braque popularized
Pablo Picasso is noted by the majority of critics as the most important influence of twentieth century art (Picasso pp). Art critic Robert Hughes once stated, "To say that Pablo Picasso dominated Western art in the 20th century is, by now, the merest commonplace" (Picasso pp). Long before his fiftieth birthday, Picasso had become "the very prototype of the modern artist as public figure ... No painter before him had
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