PABLO PICASSO Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

PABLO PICASSO - Essay Example Born in 1881, he lived for 91 years, and devoted himself to artistic production. Picasso is most renowned for co-founding the Cubism movement along with Brasque. The 1800’s were marked with astounding impressionist paintings, but enter twentieth century, and the artwork is completely different with more focus on adding great depth to objects by breaking them up and rejoining in an abstract form. The whole concept of Cubism is analyzing objects from every angle, giving a holistic view, and being able to penetrate every reality and then depicting the entire thought in a very artistic abstract way. â€Å"Ambiguous Spacing† (Mallory, 2011) is the main characteristic of Cubist paintings, where the background blends with the object. Picasso went through some different phases in his life, and experimented with different kinds of styles which is reflected in his artwork and they are divided into different stages. The first period was identified as the Blue period which lasted f rom 1901 to 1904, and was highlighted with subdued colors. Next was the Rose Period from 1904 to 1906 which has a cheery style with red, pink and orange colors seen in his paintings. Following this was Analytical Cubism from 1910 to 1912 where he used monochrome brown and more of neutral colors. Synthetic Cubism followed which was reflected in his paintings from 1912 to 1919, and was symbolized by fragmented paper cut style paintings. Classicism and surrealism was also later reflected in his paintings, however it wasn’t a period of his life. Pablo Picasso is known to have produced around 13500 paintings in his entire lifetime, and even more drawings. In 1903, when Picasso was only 21 years of age, he painted â€Å"The Old Guitarist† in Madrid, when his very close and dear friend, Casagemas committed suicide. Picasso’s outpour of emotions is reflected in his painting, so much so that this led to the beginning of the Blue Period which was highlighted by hopelessne ss and melancholy is his paintings which were usually in shades of blue and green. This particular painting of Picasso haunts the onlookers with its gloominess; the subject of the painting is a very old, weak man, who somehow resembles a beggar sitting on the street begging for pennies while glued to his guitar. The painting has a lot of emphasis on the contours of the body of the old man giving a very dramatic look. This painting speaks for the lower-class people and emphasizes on the hardships they have to face in real-life, and is a masterpiece created by Picasso. Another painting of Picasso which later became a masterpiece is Les Demoiselles d' Avignon ((The Young Ladies of Avignon, and originally titled The Brothel of Avignon) and is known to have launched Cubism in the twentieth century. Picasso painted it in 1907, however it wasn’t displayed till 1916. This painting has also been voted as the most influential painting in a hundred years by Newsweek. It is a very artful painting which was also controversial, however it depicts Cubism in essence that different people have different perspectives regarding the same artwork. The painting illustrates five nude women in angular and disorderly shapes, with not very feminine bodies, and two wearing primitive African masks. The concept behind this painting was to depict a brothel, where the women were shown without any expressions, charm or personality. The disjointed figures were to represent the aggression and hostility of the such women, who had Iberian features. This