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Pablo Ruiz y Picasso
A short biography of a famous painter and sculptor
A male born in 1881, died in 1973- Pablo Picasso was one of the most famous painters of the
1900's.
As the son of a professor of art, Picasso's talent for drawing was recognized at an early age. An
advanced student at the Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts from the age of 14, he experimented in
his youth with nearly all of the "avant-garde styles" current at the turn of the century.
He also became known for his sculpture , drawings, graphics, and ceramics works. In some way he
was the artist most characteristic of this century, because he responded to changing conditions,
moods, challenges so intensely and so rapidly. His "searching style" made him the leader in
expressing the complexity of the 1900's.
For Picasso, the meaning of art was to be derived from other works of art, and not directly from
nature. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's work had a significant impact on his early paintings, as did
the work of Paul Cezanne. Their influence, among others, can be detected in the paintings of
Picasso's "blue period" (1901-1904), which was stimulated by his exposure to life and thought in
Paris, where he made his home after 1904.
In works such as The Old Guitarist (1903; Art Institute, Chicago) he created "evocative
portrayals" of blind, impoverished, or despairing people in a blue palette. His use of blue as a
motif was apparently derived from the symbolic importance of that color in the contemporary
romantic writings of Maurice Maeterlinck and Oscar Wilde, whose work often "derived its force
from depictions of madness or illness." Although his palette and subject matter changed when he
entered (1904) what is called his "rose period," during which he painted harlequins and circus
performers in a lighter and warmer color scheme, a mood of spiritual loneliness and lyrical
"melancholy" that marked his "blue" paintings was retained. These paintings, do display "a
classical calm that contrasts clearly with the nervous expressionism" of the blue period.
Picasso's art challenges the viewers' traditional view of life. He appeared drawn to tension and
conflict. Picasso seemed to explore the fantastic world of nightmare and deep imagination which
modern psychology and modern art cites as great influence on our daily actions. He hoped to
reveal unknown influences that lie hidden in the viewers' half unconscious life. Perhaps Picasso
was influenced by the art of his native Spain, which often seems fascinated by the visionary and
the monstrous.