Picasso's Old Guitarist and the Blue Period Explained

Introduction: Picasso and the Blue Period

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Malaga, Spain. His father was an art teacher and a painter. Although Picasso was classically trained, he would come to "break painting out of its mold" throughout his prolific career (Aviram and Hartnett 207). Picasso first started painting in Spain, and his ideas and techniques evolved initially in Barcelona. After that, he spent a large amount of time in Paris pursuing a career in art. While in Paris, he helped revolutionize art by developing cubism, a philosophy and style of painting. Cubism has been called a "towering intellectual and artistic achievement that irrevocably altered the course of European art by shattering the spatial field and reassembling its component parts from different angles" ("Picasso, Pablo" 1781).

Before he developed cubism in Paris, however, Picasso developed his style in Barcelona during what is usually referred to as his "Blue Period." This period only lasted a short while, between 1901 and 1904, but it was an important time in the artist's life, as well as in the history of European art. During this time, Picasso was influenced by prevailing trends in art that focused on subjects not typically depicted, such as poor, downtrodden outcasts of society. Street musicians and old blind guitarists made for ideal subject matter, especially as he was influenced by a "circle of symbolist and decadent artists and writers in Barcelona" ("Picasso, Pablo" 1781). Also between 1901 and 1904, Picasso began traveling to Paris frequently, which introduced him to the contemporary arts of that city. In particular, French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who had been depicting the sordid elements of Parisian nightlife including drunks and prostitutes, influenced Picasso's Blue Period ("Picasso, Pablo" 1781). The Blue Period has been called a "preamble to cubism" because it reveals some early tendency toward manipulating the dimensions of space on the canvas. However, Blue Period pieces like "The Old Guitarist" are not cubist. They are, as the period's name suggests, highly monochromatic — during this time Picasso almost exclusively painted with a blue palette. The painting "The Old Guitarist" (also called "The Blind Guitarist") is emblematic of Picasso's Blue Period.

Picasso himself dismissed his work from this early period as being too "sentimental" (Bertman 1). It is precisely this sentimentality that characterizes Blue Period pieces like "The Old Guitarist," which captures the tragic nature of the human experience. Painted in 1903, the work depicts the warped, twisted body of a blind old man sitting on the floor playing his guitar. The guitar is the only element of the painting that is not blue, drawing the viewer's attention to the instrument as a counterpoint to the great suffering expressed in the body and visage of the old man.

The Old Guitarist: Subject Matter and Visual Description

The color blue used to render human skin imparts a deathly hue. It appears as if the old man is nearing death. He is thin and frail, and is stooped over. The pale blue makes it seem as though there is little lifeblood left in him — only just enough to strum the guitar he knows so well. The man's clothes are little more than "rags," and he sits on the street, suggesting that he is homeless (Bertman 1). The background is nondescript, giving the image a universality; while the setting is assumed to be Barcelona, the absence of a specific backdrop allows any viewer to relate to the figure, as they have likely encountered people like him on the streets of their own city. Indeed, the image is so evocative of medieval imagery (Aviram and Hartnett 216) that it transcends time as well as place — the same man today sits on the streets of Cadiz or Cartagena.

In fact, Picasso had recently experienced several tragic deaths, including the suicide of his best friend and the death of his sister (Gedo). Gedo also notes that Picasso was prone to "blame himself irrationally for the deaths of various friends" and was "morosely preoccupied" with his friend's suicide (153). This is most likely why the artist projects both sadness and guilt onto the canvas in "The Old Guitarist."

Personal and Cultural Influences on the Painting

The selection of subject matter was more than simply walking past a homeless man playing the guitar. The guitar plays an important role as a motif in Picasso's art and would become a central image in some of his early cubist compositions. The guitar is a quintessentially Spanish instrument, so in some ways it may symbolize Picasso's identity and cultural heritage. Other Spanish artists had also latched onto the guitar as a motif in their work. Francisco Goya had even "portrayed blind guitarists in a number of his paintings and prints" (Gedo 153). Picasso may also have been influenced stylistically by El Greco, the Greek artist who lived and worked in Spain. The "pathetic blind figure" in "The Old Guitarist" has "angular emaciated limbs" that "recall the paintings of El Greco" ("Picasso, Pablo" 1781).

There are also autobiographical elements in the painting. Picasso was living with his parents at the time but was traveling incessantly to Paris (Gedo). This semi-itinerant lifestyle is symbolized by the homeless, wandering guitarist in the painting. The blind guitarist has also been dubbed a "cipher for the modern artist" ("Picasso, Pablo" 1781). The motif of the blind musician stems back to ancient Greece, where blind musicians were often considered prophets. As Bertman states, "Like the blind prophet, Tiresias in the Greek tragedies, [the guitarist] has seen all and knows the tragic destination of our strivings — all result in loneliness and death." The blind prophet is an ironic seer: sightless yet capable of perceiving truths that sighted people may miss. In this same spirit, Picasso believed that "art is the lie to help us see the truth" (Bertman 1).

"The Old Guitarist" connects with the viewer on social, psychological, and spiritual levels. When Picasso painted the work, he was himself in a state of poverty and could relate to the poor he saw on the streets. The old guitarist is one such figure, and calls the audience's attention to the inherent humanity of the poor. The guitarist is a withered figure with pale blue skin and skeletal features — a shadow of humanity at death's door, and a reminder that even those on the streets live and die like the rest of us.