Pablo Picasso was born on October 25th, 1881 in Málaga, Spain to a father who was a professor in a school of arts and crafts (2004, encyclopedia). His father’s last name was Blasco, while his mother’s was Picasso, it was in 1991 when Pablo Picasso decided to go by his mother’s last name (2004, encyclopedia).
Since Picasso’s father was an art teacher, his father taught him everything that he knew to help Pablo become a great artist (2003, art history). In early 1900’s Pablo Picasso left his family in Málanga and moved to Paris for Picasso to continue his career as an artist, where he met and soon became friends with Henri Matisse, Joan Miró and George Braque (2003, art history).
The reason Picasso moved to Paris because it was known for then and now as ‘Capital of the arts’ (2003, art history). Sadly, the artist died in 1973, April 8th after living for 92 years in Mougins, France (2003, art history).
Pablo Picasso while in the early stages of his artist career had two painting periods called the ‘Blue Period’ and the ‘Rose Period’ (2003, art history). The ‘Blue Period’ took place in 1901-1904 and was called the blue period because almost all his paintings had shades of blue in them (encyclopedia). During this period, his paintings were rather depressive, as a symbol of the artist’s hard times during the beginning of the new century (encyclopedia).
His ‘Pink/Rose Period’ took place in 1905-1906 (2003, art history), during this period he painted quite a few paintings of circus performers (2004, encyclopedia). While the mood has changed drastically, so did the colors as Picasso painted in mostly pinks and reds (2004, encyclopedia).
It was after those periods that Pablo Picasso really started on his cubism artworks, alongside Georges Braque (2000-2005, robinurton). At first, society did not accept the art of cubism, especially for his painting ‘Les Demoiselles de Avignon’, since the woman looked scary looking and hardly realistic (2000-2005, robinurton). What inspired Picasso were the African and Oceanic tribes because of the powerful yet thoughtful artworks.
In the early stages of his artist career, the use of line is mostly suggested, unless it’s a black and white sketch but even in those you can barely see the line (1881-1906). As he started his cubism stages (1907-1911) line became thick and clearly seen. By the later stages of his career (1940-1951) line was still clearly seen but less thick.
Before Picasso co-created cubism, the shapes in his works were rather realistic and life-like. Some but few of his works continued to be life-like since he co-founded cubism, almost all his artworks were abstract.
References
- Esaak, Shelle (2003), Arthistoy, ‘Pablo Picasso’ Retrieved from http://arthistory.about.com/cs/namespp/a/picasso.htm
- Rewald, Sabine. (2000) “Cubism”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm
- Urton, Robin (2000-2005), EyeconArt, ‘Cubism’. Retrieved from http://www.robinurton.com/history/cubism.htm
- N/A (2004) Encyclopedia of World Biography. ‘Pablo Picasso’ Retrieved from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404705117.html
