Where was Picasso born in what city. Pablo Picasso - biography, facts, paintings - the great Spanish painter

The most famous and influential artist of the 20th century, the pioneer of the Cubist genre and Spanish expatriate, Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881.

Picasso's parents

Perhaps the most famous artist, whose ridiculous long name became a household name, was born in October 1881 in the city of Malaga, Spain. There were three children in the family - the boy Pablo and his sisters Lola and Concepción. Pablo's father, Jose Ruiz Blasco, worked as a professor at the school fine arts. Very little is known about Picasso's mother: Donna Maria was a simple woman. However, Picasso himself often mentioned her in his interviews. For example, he recalled that his mother, discovering his extraordinary talent for knitting, uttered the words that he remembered for a lifetime: "Son, if you go to the soldiers, you will become a general. If you go to the monastery, you will return from there as a Pope." Nevertheless, as the artist ironically noted, "I decided to become an artist and became Pablo Picasso."

© Sputnik / Sergey Pyatakov

Reproduction of the painting "Girl on the Ball" by Pablo Picasso

Childhood Picasso

Despite the fact that Picasso's school performance left much to be desired, he demonstrated unique skills in drawing, and at the age of 13 he could already compete with his father. José often locked him in a room with white walls and bars as a punishment for his poor studies. With his usual irony, Picasso later said that sitting in a cage gave him great pleasure: "I always carried a notebook and a pencil into the cell. I sat on the bench and drew. I could sit there forever, sit and draw."

The beginning of the creative path

The future art legend first made her claim to genius when the Picasso family moved to Barcelona. At the age of 16, he entered the Royal Academy of St. Fernand. The examiners were shocked when Pablo passed the entrance tests, designed for a whole month, in a day. But soon the teenager became disillusioned with the local education system, which, in his opinion, "was too fixated on the classics." Picasso began skipping classes and wandering the streets of Barcelona, ​​sketching buildings along the way. In his free time, he met with the bohemia of Barcelona. At that time, all famous artists gathered in the Four Cats cafe, where Picasso became a regular. His inimitable charisma earned him a wide circle of connections, and already in 1901 he organized the first exhibition of his paintings.

© Sputnik / V. Gromov

Reproduction of painting by P. Picasso "Bottle of Pernod (table in a cafe)"

Cubism, blue and pink periods of Picasso

The stretch between 1901 and 1904 is known as Picasso's blue period. In the works of Pablo Picasso of those times, gloomy blue tones dominated, and melancholic themes that accurately reflected his state of mind - the artist was in a severe depression, which signed his creative impulses. This period was marked by two outstanding paintings The Old Guitarist (1903) and Life (1903).

Reproduction of Pablo Picasso's painting "The Beggar with a Boy"

In the second half of 1904, a radical change in the paradigm of his work takes place. The paintings of the pink period are filled with pink and red colors, and the colors in general are much softer, thinner and more delicate. The archetype of the rose period is the painting La famille de saltimbanques (1905).

Picasso has been working in the Cubist genre since 1907. This direction is distinguished by the use of geometric shapes that break up real objects into primitive figures. "Girls of Avignon" significant work Picasso's cubic period. On this canvas, the faces of the people depicted are visible both in profile and in front. In the future, Picasso adhered to just such an approach, continuing to crush the world into individual atoms.

© Sputnik / A. Sverdlov

Painting "Three Women" by artist P. Picasso

Picasso and women

Picasso was not only outstanding artist, but also a fairly well-known Don Juan. He was married twice, but had countless connections with women of all levels and morals. Picasso himself summed up his attitude to female gender as follows: "Women are machines for suffering. I divide women into two types: mistresses and rags for wiping feet." It is not known whether Picasso's open contempt for the fair sex is due to the fact that two of the seven most important women artist committed suicide, and the third died in the fourth year of marriage.

The indisputable fact remains that Picasso was not attached to any of the dozens or perhaps hundreds of mistresses and wives, but actively used them, including financially. Among his legal wives was the ambitious Soviet dancer Olga Khokhlova. Marriage to an influential woman did not prevent him from starting relationships on the side. So, Picasso met his young mistress Dora Maar in a bar, when she chopped her fingers into a bloody mess, trying to get into the gaps between her fingers with a knife. This deeply impressed Picasso, and he lived with Dora for several more years in secret from Khokhlova.

© Sputnik / Alexey Sverdlov

Reproduction of Pablo Picasso's "Date"

Mental Disorders Picasso

Throughout his life and even after his death, Picasso was credited with a whole bunch of mental illness. However, you don't have to be a psychiatrist to do this. Picasso's overly inflated self-esteem, a sense of absolute superiority and uniqueness, and extreme egocentrism meet the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder described in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) fourth edition. The schizophrenic status of Picasso is subject to serious doubts from the medical community, since it is not possible to diagnose such a complex disease from the pictures, but it is reliably known that Picasso suffered from a severe form of dyslexia - a violation of the ability to read and write while maintaining a normal intellect .. Painting by Picasso "Algerian Women "- the most expensive picture that has ever come off the auction. In 2015, it was purchased for $179 million.

Picasso hated to drive for fear of hurting his hands. His luxurious Hispano-Suiza limousine has always been driven by a personal driver.

Picasso had an affair with Coco Chanel. As Mademoiselle Chanel recalled, "Picasso was the only man in the second millennium who turned me on." However, Picasso himself was afraid of her, and often complained that Coco was too famous and rebellious.

There are legends about Picasso's narcissism and astronomical self-esteem. However, some rumors are not true at all. The legendary artist once said to a friend, "God is also an artist... just like me. I am God."

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, full name - Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuseno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Martir Patricio Ruiz and Picasso (in Russian, a variant with an emphasis on the French manner of Picasso is also adopted, Spanish. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Mártir Patricio Ruiz y Picasso; October 25, 1881 (18811025), Malaga, Spain - April 8, 1973, Mougins, France) - Spanish and French artist, sculptor, graphic artist, theater artist, ceramist and designer.

The founder of cubism (together with Georges Braque and Juan Gris), in which a three-dimensional body was depicted in an original manner as a series of planes combined together. Picasso worked a lot as a graphic artist, sculptor, ceramist, etc. He brought to life a lot of imitators and had an exceptional influence on the development of fine arts in the 20th century. According to the Museum contemporary art(New York), Picasso created about 20 thousand works in his life.

By expert opinion, Picasso is the most "expensive" artist in the world: in 2008, the volume of only official sales of his works amounted to 262 million dollars. On May 4, 2010, Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust sold at Christie's for $106,482,000 became the most expensive work art in the world at that time.

On May 11, 2015, a new absolute record was set at the Christie's auction for works of art sold at public auction - Pablo Picasso's painting "Women of Algiers (version O)" went for a record $179,365,000.

According to a poll of 1.4 million readers conducted by The Times in 2009, Picasso - best artist among those who have lived in the past 100 years. Also, his paintings take first place in terms of "popularity" among the kidnappers.

Childhood and years of study

According to Spanish tradition Picasso received two surnames from the first surnames of his parents: his father - Ruiz and his mother - Picasso. The full name that future artist received at baptism - Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuseno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano (Crispiniano) de la Santisima Trinidad Martir Patricio Ruiz and Picasso. The surname of Picasso by his mother, under which the artist gained fame, is of Italian origin: Picasso's mother's great-grandfather Tommaso moved to Spain in early XIX century from the town of Sori in the province of Genoa. Picasso was born in the house on Malaga's Merced Square, which now houses the artist's house-museum and the foundation that bears his name.

Picasso began to draw from childhood, the first lessons artistic skill he received from his father - art teacher Jose Ruiz Blasco, and soon succeeded greatly in this. At the age of 8, he painted his first serious oil painting, "Picador" with which he did not part throughout his life.

In 1891, Don José received a position as a drawing teacher in A Coruña, and the young Pablo moved with his family to the north of Spain, where he studied at the local art school (1894-1895).

Subsequently, the family moved to Barcelona, ​​and in 1895 Picasso entered the La Lonja School of Fine Arts. Pablo was only fourteen, so he was too young to enter La Longha. However, at the insistence of his father, he was allowed to take the entrance exams on a competitive basis. Picasso passed all the exams with flying colours, and entered La Longha. At first he signed with his father's name Ruiz Blasco, but then chose the name of the mother - Picasso.

In early October 1897, Picasso left for Madrid, where he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. Picasso used his stay in Madrid mainly for a detailed study of the collection of the Prado Museum, and not for studying at the academy with its classical traditions, where Picasso was cramped and boring.

Picasso returned to Barcelona in June 1898, where he joined art society Els Quatre Gats, after the name of a bohemian cafe with round tables. In this cafe in 1900 its first two personal exhibitions. In Barcelona, ​​he became close to his future friends Carlos Casajemas and Jaime Sabartes, who later became characters in his paintings.

As a child, his mother put her son to bed and always read him fairy tales, which she herself invented using emotions from the past day. Then Pablo himself said that it was these tales that inspired in him the desire to create, using the same emotions of one day.

"Blue" and "pink" periods

In 1900, Picasso and his friend, the artist Casajemas, left for Paris, where they visited the World Exhibition. It was there that Pablo Picasso got acquainted with the work of the Impressionists. His life at this time was fraught with many difficulties, and the suicide of Carlos Casajemas had a profound effect on the young Picasso.

Under these circumstances, at the beginning of 1902, Picasso began to paint in a style that would later be called the "blue" period of the artist's work in Barcelona in 1903-1904. The themes of old age and death are clearly expressed in the works of this time, images of poverty, melancholy and sadness are characteristic (“Woman with a Bun of Hair”, 1903; Picasso believed: “who is sad is sincere”); people's movements are slowed down, they seem to listen to themselves ("Absinthe Drinker", 1901; "Woman with a Chignon", 1901; "Date", 1902; "A Beggar Old Man with a Boy", 1903; "Tragedy", 1903). The master's palette is dominated by blue shades. Displaying human suffering, Picasso during this period painted the blind, beggars, alcoholics and prostitutes. Their pale, somewhat elongated bodies in the paintings are reminiscent of the work of the Spanish artist El Greco.

The work of the transitional period - from "blue" to "pink" - "Girl on the ball" (1905, Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow).

In 1904, Picasso settled in Paris, where he found refuge in the famous Montmartre hostel for poor artists, Bateau Lavoir: the so-called “pink period” began, in which the sadness and poverty of the “blue period” were replaced by images from the more lively world of theater and circus. The artist preferred pink-gold and pink-gray tones, and the characters were mostly wandering artists - clowns, dancers and acrobats; the paintings of this period are imbued with the spirit of the tragic loneliness of the destitute, the romantic life of wandering comedians (“The Family of an Acrobat with a Monkey”, 1905).

Cubism

From experimenting with color and conveying mood, Picasso turned to the analysis of form: the conscious deformation and destruction of nature (The Maidens of Avignon, 1907), the one-sided interpretation of Cezanne's system and the fascination with African sculpture lead him to a completely new genre. Together with Georges Braque, whom he met in 1907, Picasso became the founder of cubism, an artistic movement that rejected the traditions of naturalism and the pictorial and cognitive function of art.

Picasso pays special attention to the transformation of forms into geometric blocks ("Factory in Horta de Ebro", 1909), increases and breaks volumes ("Portrait of Fernanda Olivier", 1909), cuts them into planes and faces, continuing in a space that he himself he considers it to be a solid body, inevitably limited by the plane of the picture (“Portrait of Kahnweiler”, 1910). The perspective disappears, the palette gravitates towards monochrome, and although the original goal of Cubism was to reproduce a sense of space and heaviness of the masses more convincingly than with the help of traditional techniques, Picasso's paintings often come down to incomprehensible puzzles. In order to get back in touch with reality, Picasso and Georges Braque introduce typographic type, elements of “decoy” and rough materials into their paintings: wallpaper, pieces of newspapers, matchboxes. Still life paintings begin to predominate, mainly with musical instruments, pipes and tobacco boxes, notes, bottles of wine, etc. - attributes inherent in the lifestyle of artistic bohemia at the beginning of the century. “Cubist cryptography” appears in the compositions: encrypted phone numbers, houses, scraps of the names of lovers, street names, zucchini. The collage technique connects the faces of the cubist prism into large planes (“Guitar and Violin”, 1913) or conveys in a calm and humorous manner the discoveries made in 1910-1913 (“Portrait of a Girl”, 1914). In the "synthetic" period, there is also a desire to harmonize color, balanced by compositions that sometimes fit into an oval. Actually, the cubist period in the work of Picasso ends shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, which divided him from Georges Braque. Although in his significant works the artist uses some cubist techniques until 1921 (“Three Musicians”, 1921).

Russian ballet

Pablo Picasso, caricature of Erik Satie. (1920)

In September 1916, writer-screenwriter Jean Cocteau and composer Eric Satie persuade Picasso to participate in the production of the innovative "surreal" ballet Parade for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Picasso is seriously interested in the idea of ​​this ballet, gets involved in the work, and, in collaboration with Satie, completely reworks both the script and the set design. A month later, he leaves with the entire troupe of the Russian Ballets for two months in Rome, where he performs scenery, costumes, gets acquainted with the Parade choreographer Leonid Myasin and many ballet dancers of the Russian troupe. Introductory manifesto for the play "Parade", "... more truthful than the truth itself", in the spring of 1917, Guillaume Apollinaire wrote, declaring him in advance the herald of the "New Spirit" in art. Diaghilev deliberately relied on a great provocation and prepared it with all available means. It happened exactly as he planned. The grandiose scandal on May 18, 1917, which took place at the premiere (and the only performance) of this ballet at the Chatelet Theater, contributed a lot to the rise of Picasso's popularity in wide circles of the Parisian beau monde. The audience in the hall almost disrupted the performance with shouts of "Russian boches, down with the Russians, Sati and Picasso boches!" It even came to a fight. The press went on a rampage, critics declared the Russian Ballet to be almost traitors, demoralizing French society in the rear during a difficult and unsuccessful war. Here is just one of the reviews, indicative of their tone, that came out the day after the premiere of Parade. By the way, the author of this article was not at all some marginal critic, but quite respectable Leo Poldes, owner of the Club du Faubourg...

An anti-harmonious, psychotic composer of typewriters and rattles, Eric Satie, for his own pleasure, smeared the reputation of the Russian Ballet with mud, making a scandal,<…>during the time when talented musicians humbly waiting to be played... And the geometric muff and smudge Picasso has climbed to the forefront of the stage, while talented artists are humbly waiting to be exhibited.

Diaghilev was extremely pleased with the effect produced. Picasso's collaboration with the Ballets Russes continued actively after Parade (set and costumes for Manuel de Falla's Tricorne, 1919). A new form of activity, vivid stage images and large objects resurrect in him an interest in decorativism and theatricality of plots.

During the Roman preparations for Parade, Picasso met the ballerina Olga Khokhlova, who became his first wife. On February 12, 1918, they get married in a Russian church in Paris, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire were witnesses at their wedding. They have a son, Paulo (February 4, 1921).

The euphoric and conservative atmosphere of post-war Paris, Picasso's marriage to Olga Khokhlova, the artist's success in society - all this partly explains the return to figurativeness, temporary and, moreover, relative, since Picasso continued to paint at that time pronounced cubist still lifes ("Mandolin and Guitar", 1924 ).

Surrealism

In 1925 begins one of the most difficult and uneven periods in the work of Picasso. After the epicurean grace of the 1920s (“Dance”), Picasso creates an atmosphere of convulsions and hysteria, a surreal world of hallucinations, which can be explained in part by the influence of Surrealist poets, manifested in some drawings, poems written in 1935, and a theater play created during the war . For several years, Picasso's imagination seemed to be able to create only monsters, some creatures torn apart ("Seated Bather", 1929), screaming ("Woman in an Armchair", 1929), bloated to the point of absurdity and shapeless ("Bather", drawing , 1927) or embodying metamorphic and aggressive-erotic images (“Figures on the Seashore”, 1931). Despite a few quieter works, which are the most significant in terms of painting, stylistically it was a very changeable period (Girl in front of a Mirror, 1932). Women remain the main victims of his violent unconscious quirks, perhaps because Picasso himself did not get along well with his own wife, or because simple beauty Marie-Therese Walter, whom he met in March 1932, inspired him to frank sensuality ("Mirror", 1932). She also became the model for several serene and majestic sculptural busts executed in 1932 at the Château de Bouagelou, which he purchased in 1930. In the years 1930-1934, it is in sculpture that all life force Picasso: busts and female nudes, sometimes influenced by Matisse (Reclining Woman, 1932), animals, small figures in the spirit of surrealism (Man with a Bouquet, 1934) and especially metal structures that have semi-abstract, semi-real forms and executed sometimes from rough materials (he creates them with the help of his friend, the Spanish sculptor Julio Gonzalez - "Construction", 1931). Along with these strange and sharp forms, Picasso's engravings for Ovid's Metamorphoses (1930) testify to the persistence of his classical inspiration.

"Guernica" and pacifism

In 1937, Picasso's sympathies were on the side of the Republicans fighting in Spain (a series of aquatints "Dreams and Lies of General Franco", printed in the form of postcards, were scattered from aircraft over the positions of the Francoists). In April 1937, German and Italian aircraft bombed and destroyed the small Basque town of Guernica, the cultural and political center of life for this freedom-loving people. In two months, Picasso creates his "Guernica" - a huge canvas that was exhibited in the Republican Pavilion of Spain at the World Exhibition in Paris. Light and dark monochrome colors seem to convey the feeling of flashes of fire. In the center of the composition, like a frieze, in the combinatorics of cubist-surrealistic elements, fallen warrior, a woman running up to him and a wounded horse. The main theme is accompanied by images of a weeping woman with a dead child and a bull behind her and female figure in flames with hands up. In the darkness of a small square, over which a lantern hangs, stretches long arm with a lamp as a symbol of hope.

The horror that seized Picasso in the face of the threat of barbarism hanging over Europe, his fear of war and fascism, the artist did not express directly, but gave his paintings an alarming tone and gloom (“Fishing at night in Antibes”, 1939), sarcasm, bitterness that did not touched only on children's portraits ("Maya and her doll", 1938). Once again, women were the main victims of this general gloomy mood. Among them is Dora Maar, with whom the artist became close in 1936 and Beautiful face which he deformed and distorted with grimaces (" crying woman", 1937). Never before had an artist's misogyny been expressed with such bitterness; crowned with ridiculous hats, faces depicted in front and in profile, wild, crushed, then dissected bodies, swollen to monstrous proportions, and their parts are combined into burlesque forms (“Morning Serenade”, 1942). The German occupation could not frighten Picasso: he remained in Paris from 1940 to 1944. She also did not weaken his activity: portraits, sculptures (“Man with a Lamb”), meager still lifes, which sometimes express with deep tragedy all the hopelessness of the era (“Still Life with a Bull's Skull”, 1942).

In 1944, Picasso enters Communist Party France. The humanistic views of Picasso are manifested in his works. In 1950 he paints the famous "Dove of Peace".

After the war

The post-war work of Picasso can be called happy; he becomes close to Françoise Gilot, whom he met in 1945 and who will bear him two children, thus giving themes to his many charming family paintings. He leaves Paris for the south of France, discovers the joy of the sun, the beach, the sea. The works created in 1945-1955, very Mediterranean in spirit, are characterized by their atmosphere of pagan idyll and the return of antique moods, which find their expression in paintings and drawings created at the end of 1946 in the halls of the Antibes Museum, which later became the Picasso Museum ("Joy life").

In the autumn of 1947, Picasso began working at the Madura factory in Vallauris; fascinated by the problems of the craft and manual labor, he himself makes many dishes, decorative plates, anthropomorphic jugs and figurines in the form of animals (Centaur, 1958), sometimes somewhat archaic in style, but always full of charm and wit. Particularly important in that period were sculptures (The Pregnant Woman, 1950). Some of them (“Goat”, 1950; “Monkey with a Baby”, 1952) are made of random materials (the belly of a goat is made from an old basket) and are among the masterpieces of assemblage technique. In 1953, Francoise Gilot and Picasso part ways. This was the beginning of a severe moral crisis for the artist, which is echoed in a remarkable series of drawings executed between the end of 1953 and the end of the winter of 1954; in them, Picasso, in his own way, in a puzzling and ironic manner, expressed the bitterness of old age and his skepticism in relation to painting itself. In Vallauris, the artist began in 1954 a series of portrait images "Sylvette". In the same year, Picasso meets with Jacqueline Roque, who in 1958 will become his wife and inspire a series of statuary portraits. In 1956, a documentary film about the artist "The Mystery of Picasso" was released on French screens.

The works of the last fifteen years of the artist's work are very diverse and unequal in quality ("Workshop in Cannes", 1956). One can, however, single out the Spanish source of inspiration (“Portrait of the Artist, in imitation of El Greco”, 1950) and elements of tauromachy (Picasso was a passionate admirer of the bullfight popular in southern France), expressed in drawings and watercolors in the spirit of Goya (1959-1968). A sense of dissatisfaction with one's own work marked a series of interpretations and variations on themes famous paintings Girls on the banks of the Seine. According to Courbet" (1950); "Algerian women. According to Delacroix (1955); "Menins. According to Velasquez" (1957); "Breakfast on the grass. According to Manet (1960).

Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins (France) at his villa Notre Dame de Vie. He was buried near the Vovenart castle that belonged to him.

IN THE USSR

In the USSR, the work of Picasso was perceived ambiguously. According to the famous art critic I. N. Golomshtok":

For socialist realist artists - academicians, members of the board of the Moscow Union of Artists - Picasso was, perhaps, the main enemy. On the one hand - a communist, a progressive figure, a fighter for peace, and it was dangerous to touch him; on the other hand... It's not that, from their point of view, he was a "bourgeois formalist", one could still come to terms with this, the main thing is that he was a great master, and when compared with his works, all the great achievements of Soviet art faded and were discarded a century ago. For a trained eye, this was visible at first sight, for an untrained eye, at a second. It was impossible to come to terms with this, and the struggle with Picasso went in different directions.

A family

Pablo Picasso was married twice:

• on Olga Khokhlova (1891-1955) - in 1917-1935
  • son Paulo (1921-1975)
• on Jacqueline Rock (1927-1986) - in 1961-1973, no children, Picasso's widow, committed suicide
  • adopted daughter Catherine Hutin-Ble (b. 1952)

In addition, he had illegitimate children:

• from Marie-Therese Walter:
  • daughter Maya (b. 1935)
• from Françoise Gilot (b. 1921):
  • son Claude (b. 1947)
  • daughter Paloma (b. 1949) - French designer

Awards

• Laureate of the International Lenin Prize "For strengthening peace among peoples" (1962).

Memory

• The Picasso Museum was opened in Barcelona. In 1960, Picasso's close friend and assistant, Jaime Sabartes i Gual, decides to donate his collection of Picasso's works and organize a Picasso museum. On May 9, 1963, a museum called the Sabartes Collection was opened in the Gothic palace of Berenguer de Aguilar. The Picasso Museum occupies five mansions in Montcada Meca, Berenguer d'Aguilar, Mauri, Finestres and Baro de Castellet. The museum, which opened in 1968, was based on the collection of Picasso's friend Jaime Sabartes. After the death of Sabartes, Picasso, as a sign of his love for the city and in addition to the huge will of Sabartes, in 1970 gave the museum about 2450 works (canvases, engravings and drawings), 141 works of ceramics. More than 3,500 works by Picasso make up the museum's permanent collection.
• In 1985, the Picasso Museum was opened in Paris (Sale Hotel); this includes works donated by the artist's heirs - more than 200 paintings, 158 sculptures, collages and thousands of drawings, prints and documents, as well as Picasso's personal collection. New gifts from the heirs (1990) enriched the Picasso Museum in Paris, the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris and several provincial museums (paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, engravings and lithographs). In 2003, the Picasso Museum was opened in his hometown of Malaga.
• His role in James Ivory's Living a Life with Picasso (1996) was played by Anthony Hopkins.
• Several Citroën car models have been named after Picasso.

In philately

Postage stamps of the USSR

1973

1981

Data

• In 2006, casino owner Steve Wynn, who bought Picasso's Dream for $48.4 million in the 1990s, agreed to sell the Cubist masterpiece for $139 million to American collector Stephen Cohen. The deal fell through as Wynn, suffering from an eye condition and seeing poorly, awkwardly turned around and jabbed his elbow through the canvas. He himself called the incident "the most clumsy and stupid gesture in the world." After restoration, the painting was put up for auction by Christie's, where on March 27, 2013 Cohen bought it for $155 million. According to Bloomberg, at the time, this was the highest amount paid for a work of art by an American collector.
• In the spring of 2015, Picasso's "Women of Algiers" (fr. Les Femmes d "Algers) was sold in New York for $179 million, becoming the most expensive painting ever sold at auction.

periodization

List of paintings painted by Picasso, according to the periods of his work.

Early period

"Picador", 1889
"First Communion", 1895-1896
“Barefoot girl. Fragment", 1895
"Self-portrait", 1896
"Portrait of the artist's mother", 1896
"Knowledge and Mercy", 1897
Matador Luis Miguel Dominguin, 1897
Lola, Picasso's sister, 1899
"Spanish couple in front of the hotel", 1900

"Blue" period

"The Absinthe Drinker", 1901
"Bending Harlequin", 1901
"Woman with a chignon", 1901
"The Death of Casagemas", 1901
"Self-portrait in the blue period", 1901
"Portrait of the art dealer Pedro Manach", 1901
"Woman in a blue hat", 1901
"Woman with a Cigarette", 1901
"Gourmet", 1901
"Absinthe", 1901
"Date (Two Sisters)", 1902
"The head of a woman", 1902-1903
"Old Guitarist", 1903
Blind Man's Breakfast, 1903
"Life", 1903
"Tragedy", 1903
"Portrait of Soler", 1903
"The beggar old man with the boy", 1903
"Ascetic", 1903
"Woman with a crow", 1904
"Catalan sculptor Manolo (Manuel Hugo)", 1904
"Ironer", 1904

"Pink" period

"Girl on a ball", 1905
"In the cabaret Lapin Agil or Harlequin with a glass", 1905
Harlequin Seated on a Red Bench, 1905
"Acrobats (Mother and Son)", 1905
"Girl in a shirt", 1905
"Family of comedians", 1905
"Two brothers", 1905
"Two young men", 1905
"Acrobat and young Harlequin", 1905
Magician and Still Life, 1905
"Lady with a fan", 1905
"Girl with a goat", 1906
“Peasants. Composition", 1906
"Naked Youth", 1906
"Glassware", 1906
"Boy Leading a Horse", 1906
"Toilet", 1906
"Haircut", 1906
"Self-portrait with palette", 1906

"African" period

"Portrait of Gertrude Stein", 1906
Girls of Avignon, 1907
"Self-portrait", 1907
"Naked woman (bust image)", 1907
"Dance with Veils", 1907
"Head of a Woman", 1907
"Head of a Man", 1907

Cubism

"Seated woman", 1908
"Friendship", 1908
"Green bowl and black bottle", 1908
"Pot, glass and book", 1908
Cans and bowls, 1908
"Flowers in a gray jug and a glass with a spoon", 1908
"Farmer", 1908
Dryad, 1908
"Three Women", 1908
"Woman with a fan", 1908
"Two nude figures", 1908
"Bathing", 1908
"Bouquet of flowers in a gray jug", 1908
"Portrait of Fernard Olivier", 1909
"Bread and a bowl of fruit on the table", 1909
"Woman with a mandolin", 1909
"Man with Crossed Arms", 1909
"Woman with a fan", 1909
"Nude", 1909
"Vase, fruit and glass", 1909
"Young lady", 1909
"Factory in Horta de San Juan", 1909
"Nude", 1910
"Portrait of Daniel-Henry Caveiller", 1912
"Still life with a wicker chair", 1911-1912
"Violin", 1912
"Nude, I love Eve", 1912
"Restaurant: Turkey with truffles and wine", 1912
"Bottle of Pernod (table in a cafe)", 1912
"Musical Instruments", 1912
"Tavern (Ham)", 1912
"Violin and Guitar", 1913
"Clarinet and violin", 1913
"Guitar", 1913
"Gambler", 1913-1914
"Composition. Vase of fruit and a cut pear, 1913-1914
"Vase for fruit and a bunch of grapes", 1914
"Portrait of Ambroise Vollard", 1915
"Harlequin", 1915
Polichenelle with a guitar in front of a curtain, 1919
"Three musicians or masked musicians", 1921
"Three Musicians", 1921
"Still life with guitar", 1921

.

"Classic" period

"Portrait of Olga in an armchair", 1917
"Staging sketch for the ballet" Parade "", 1917
"Harlequin with a guitar", 1917
"Pierrot", 1918
"Bathers", 1918
"Still life", 1918
"Still life with a jug and apples", 1919
"Still Life", 1919
Sleeping Peasants, 1919
"Guitar, bottle, fruit bowl and glass on the table", 1919
"Three dancers", 1919-1920
"Group of dancers. Olga Khokhlova lies in the foreground, 1919-1920
"Juan-les-Pins", 1920
"Portrait of Igor Stravinsky", 1920
"Reading a letter", 1921
"Mother and child", 1922
"Women running on the beach", 1922
"Classic Head", 1922
"Portrait of Olga Picasso", 1922-1923
"Country dance", 1922-1923
"Children's portrait of Paul Picasso", 1923
"Lovers", 1923
Pan's pipe, 1923
"Seated Harlequin", 1923
Madame Olga Picasso, 1923
"Mother Picasso", 1923
Olga Khokhlova, Picasso's first wife, 1923
Paul dressed as a Harlequin, 1924
"Paul dressed as Pierrot", 1925
"Three Graces", 1925

Surrealism

"Dance", 1925
"Bather opening the booth", 1928

"Nude on the beach", 1929
"Nude on the beach", 1929
"Nude in an armchair", 1929
"Acrobat", 1930
"Crucifixion", 1930
"Figures on the beach", 1931
"Girl throwing a stone", 1931
"Nude and still life", 1931
"Dream", 1932 (painting "Le Rêve" mentioned above in "Interesting Facts")
"Nude in an armchair", 1932
"Still life - bust, bowl and palette", 1932
"Woman with a flower", 1932

War. Guernica

Guernica, 1937
"Weeping Woman", 1937
"Wounded bird and cat", 1938
"Night fishing in Antibes", 1939
"Still life with a bull's skull", 1942
"Crypt", 1944-1945
"Still Life", 1945

After the war

"Portrait of Francoise", 1946
"Woman in an armchair I", 1948
"Claude, son of Picasso", 1948
"Woman with green hair", 1949
"Paloma and Claude, children of Picasso", 1950
"Paloma with celluloid fish", 1950
Francoise Gilot with Claude and Paloma, 1951
Francoise, Claude and Paloma, 1951
"Knight, page and monk", 1951
"Portrait of Sylvette", 1954

Later works

"Jacqueline with Flowers" 1954 Oil on canvas. 116x88.5 cm.
"Jacqueline Rock", 1954
"Jacqueline Rock", 1955
Jacqueline in Turkish costume. 1955 Oil on canvas
"Algerian women. By Delacroix. 1955 Oil on canvas. 114x146 cm
"Paloma Picasso", 1956
"California" workshop in Cannes, 1956
Jacqueline in the Studio, 1956
"Doves", 1957
"Menins. According to Velasquez, 1957 Oil on canvas. 194x260 cm.
"Jacqueline Rock", 1957
"Jacqueline in the studio". 1957 Oil on canvas
"King of the Minotaurs", 1958
"Monolithic Nude", 1958
"Nude in an armchair", 1959
"Nude in an armchair with a bottle of Evian water, a glass and shoes", 1959
"Jacqueline de Vauvenargues", 1959
Vauvenargues in the rain, 1959 Oil on canvas.
El Bobo, 1959
"Naked Queen of the Amazons with a servant", 1960
"Jacqueline", 1960
"Portrait of a seated woman", 1960
"Breakfast on the grass. According to Manet, 1960, August. Canvas, oil. 129x195 cm. Picasso Museum, Paris.
"Breakfast on the grass. According to Manet, 1961
"Woman", 1961
"Violence on the Sabines" ("The Abduction of the Sabines"), 1962-1963 Canvas, oil.
"Artist and Model", 1963
"Nude sitting in an armchair 2", 1965
"Naked man and woman", 1965
"Serenade", 1965
"Peeing", 1965
Man, Mother and Child II, 1965
"Portrait of Jacqueline", 1965
"Seated Man (Self-portrait)", 1965
"Sleeping", 1965
"Artist and Model", 1965
"Drawing nude in an armchair", 1965
"Bust of a bearded man", 1965
"Serenade", 1965
"Head of a Man", 1965
"Nude sitting in an armchair 1", 1965
"Cat and Lobster", 1965
"Landscape. Mougins. 1", 1965
Model in Atelier 3, 1965
Seated Nude Woman, 1965
"Head of a Woman", 1965
"Artist in a hat", 1965
"Model in Atelier 1", 1965
"Head of a bearded man", 1965
"Bust of a Man", 1965
"Girlfriends", 1965
"Head of a Woman", 1965
Model in Atelier 3, 1965
"Head of a Woman", 1965
"Omar and the Cat", 1965
"Two naked men and a seated child, 1965
"Riders in the Circus". 1967 Oil on canvas
"Musketeer". 1967 Oil on canvas 81x65 cm
"Bust of a matador 1", 1970
"Bust of a Woman 1", 1970
"Mustache Man", 1970
Bust of a Woman 2, 1970
"Head of a Man 2", 1970
"Character", 1970
"Man and woman with a bouquet", 1970
"Hugs", 1970
"Portrait of a man in a gray hat", 1970
"Head of Harlequin", 1971
"Two", 1973

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in Spain in the city of Malaga in the family of the artist Jose Ruiz Blasco. The talent of the future artist began to demonstrate early. Already from the age of 7, the boy added some details to his father's paintings (the first such work was the paws of pigeons). At the age of 8, the first serious oil painting called "Picador" was painted.

"Picador" 1889

At the age of 13, Pablo Picasso became a student at the Academy of Arts in Barcelona - Pablo showed himself so well at the entrance exams that the commission accepted him into the academy despite his young age.

In 1897, Picasso left for Madrid to enter the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. But Pablo studied there for no more than a year - it was too boring and cramped young talent in the academy with its classical traditions. In Madrid, the young man was more attracted fast paced life metropolis. Pablo also devoted much time to studying the works of artists such as Diego Vilasquez, Francisco Goya and El Greco, who made a great impression on the artist.

In those years, the artist first visited Paris, which was then considered the capital of the arts. He lived in this city for months, visiting various museums in order to study the works of masters of painting: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Delacroix and many others. Picasso will often visit Paris in the future, and later this city will captivate him so much that Picasso decides to permanently move there (1904).

The most famous works of Pablo Picasso, written by him in the early period (before 1900)

"Portrait of a mother" 1896

"Knowledge and Mercy" 1897

"First Communion" 1896

"Self-portrait" 1896

"Matador Luis Miguel Domingen" 1897

"Spanish couple in front of the hotel" 1900

“Barefoot girl. Fragment» 1895

"Man on the bank of the pond" 1897

"Man in a hat" 1895

"Boulevard Clichy" 1901

"Portrait of the artist's father" 1895

The next period in the work of Pablo Picasso is called "blue". In 1901 - 1904. cold colors prevailed in Picasso's palette - mostly blue and its shades. At this time, Picasso raised the themes of old age, poverty, poverty, melancholy and sadness were the characteristic mood of the paintings of this period. The artist depicted human suffering, drawing the blind, beggars, alcoholics and prostitutes, etc. - they were the main characters of the "blue" period.

Works of the "blue" period (1901-1904)

"Breakfast of the Blind" 1903

"Mother and Child" 1903

"Absinthe Drinker" 1901

"Ironer" 1904

"The beggar old man with the boy" 1903

"Life" 1903

"Two Sisters (Date)" 1902

"Blue Room (Bath)" 1901

"Gourmet" 1901

"Seated woman in a hood" 1902

In the "pink" period (1904 - 1906), the main theme in the artist's work was the circus and its characters - acrobats and comedians. Bright cheerful colors prevailed. The favorite character of this period can be called the harlequin, which was most often found in the works of Picasso. In addition to the circus, he was also inspired by the model Fernanda Olivier, whom he met in 1904, at the very beginning of the “pink” period. She was the muse of the artist throughout the entire period.

Works of the "pink" period (1904 - 1906)

"Acrabat and harlequin" 1905

"Girl with a goat" 1906

"Boy Leading a Horse" 1906

"Family of comedians" 1905

"Peasants" 1906

"Naked woman with a jug" 1906

"Combing" 1906

"Woman with bread" 1905

"Two acrabats with a dog" 1905

"Toilet" 1906

One of the most famous paintings by P. Picasso "Girl on the ball" (1905), which is now in the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, some experts call the transition from the “blue” period to the “pink” one.

"Girl on the ball" 1905

The turning point in the work of Picasso was the portrait of Gertrude Stein, painted by him in 1906.

The work on the portrait was hard - the artist repainted the portrait about 80 times, and as a result, Picasso moved away from the portrait as a genre of fine art in its classical sense. All further work of Picasso can be characterized by just one of his phrases "We must write not what I see, but what I know." It was this installation that P. Picasso tried to adhere to until the end of his life.

Cubism

This big period in the work of Pablo Picasso is divided into several stages. This is the time of a complete rejection of the detailing of the characters: the subject and the background almost merge into one, there are no clearly defined boundaries. Picasso was convinced that an artist can do more than just show what the eye sees.

The first stage is the "Cezanne" aka the "African" period. This stage is distinguished by the construction of images using simple geometric shapes and the predominance of cloudy blurry greens, ocher and brown tones.

In 1907-1909, the artist's attention was focused on African art, which he first met in 1907 at an ethnographic exhibition at the Trocadero Museum. From now on, Picasso's work began to be dominated by simple, even primitive forms of depicted objects. In technique, the artist began to use rough shading. The first painting made in the "African" style is considered to be "The Girls of Avignon" in 1907.

This picture was written by the author throughout the year. Picasso did not work with any of his paintings for so long. As a result, this work was so different from his previous paintings that it was ambiguously perceived by the public. But having found a new style that was interesting for him, Picasso was not going to retreat, and for 2 years the artist developed it in every possible way.

Works of "Cezanne" cubism ("African" period) (1907 - 1909)

"Farmer" 1908

"Head of a Man" 1907

"Bather" 1909

"Still life with bowl and jug" 1908

"Nude with drapery (Dance with Veils)" 1907

"Portrait of Manuel Pallares" 1909

"Three figures under a tree" 1907

"Glasses and fruits" 1908

"Bust of a Man (Athlete)" 1909

"Woman" 1907

In the analytical period, Picasso came to the realization that he needed to focus entirely on the volume and shape of objects, relegating color to the background. Thus, monochrome became the hallmark of analytical cubism. It is also worth noting the structure of the works of this period - the artist seems to crush objects into small fragments. The line between different things disappears and everything is perceived as a whole.

Works of "analytical" cubism (1909-1912)

"Man with a guitar" 1911

"The Man with the Violin" 1912

"Accordionist" 1911

"Still life with a bottle of liquor" 1909

"Poet" 1911

"Portrait of Fernanda" 1909

"Portrait of Wilhelm Uhde" 1910

"Seated Nude" 1910

"Woman in green" 1909

"Woman in an armchair" 1909

The beginning of the synthetic period was the painting “Memories of Le Havre”, painted by Pablo Picasso in 1912. In this picture, brighter colors appeared that were not inherent in analytical cubism.

Monochrome works again gave way to color. Basically, the paintings of this period were dominated by still lifes: bottles of wine, notes, cutlery and musical instruments. To dilute the abstractness in the work on the paintings, real objects were used, such as: ropes, sand, wallpaper, etc.

Works of "synthetic" cubism (1912-1917)

"Man by the fireplace" 1916

"Man in top hat" 1914

"Glass and playing cards» 1912

"Guitar" 1912

"Still life with fruit on the table" 1914-1915

"Pedestal" 1914

"Table in a cafe (Bottle of Perno)" 1912

"Tavern (Ham)" 1914

"Green Still Life" 1914

"Man with a pipe, sitting in an armchair" 1916

Despite the fact that cubism was actively criticized by many, the works of this period sold well and Pablo Picasso finally stopped begging and moved into a spacious studio.

The next period in the artist's work was neoclassicism, which was initiated by Picasso's marriage to the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova in 1918. This was preceded by Pablo's work on the sets and costume designs for the ballet Parade in 1917. It was while doing this work that the artist met Olga Khokhlova.

Curtain for the ballet "Parade" 1917

Ballet program Parade with Picasso's drawing. 1917

Chinese magician dressed as Picasso modern interpretation, 2003

The character of the French "steward" (barkers)

This period is very far from cubism: real faces, light colors, regular forms ... He was inspired by his Russian wife for such changes in his work, who brought a lot of new things to Pablo's life. Even the artist's lifestyle has changed - attending social events, costumed ballets, etc. In a word, Picasso began to rotate in a secular environment, which was previously alien to him. For such a sharp transition from cubism to classicism, Picasso was criticized by many. The artist answered all the claims in one of his interviews: “Whenever I want to say something, I speak in the manner in which, in my opinion, it should be said.”

Works of the neoclassical period (1918 - 1925)

"Reading a letter" 1921

"Bathers" 1918

"Lovers" 1923

"Mother and Child" 1921

"Olga Khokhlova in a mantilla" 1917

"Olga Picasso" 1923

"First Communion" 1919

"Pierrot" 1918

"Portrait of Olga in an armchair" 1917

"Portrait of Paul" the artist's son 1923

"Sleeping Peasants" 1919

"Three bathers" 1920

"Woman with a child on the seashore" 1921

"Woman in a Mantilla" 1917

"Women running along the shore" 1922

In 1925, the artist painted the painting "Dance", which fully reflects the problems in the artist's personal life at that time.

In the winter of 1927, Picasso meets his new muse- seventeen-year-old Maria Theresa Walter, who became the character of many paintings of the surrealist period. In 1935, the couple had a daughter, Maya, but in 1936, Picasso left Maria Theresa and Olga Khokhlova, with whom he would not file an official divorce until Olga's death in 1955.

Works of the period of surrealism (1925 - 1936)

"Akrabat" 1930

"Girl throwing a stone" 1931

"Figures on the beach" 1931

"Still life" 1932

"Nude and still life" 1931

"Nude on the beach" 1929

"Nude on the beach" 1929

"Woman with a flower" 1932

"Dream (portrait of the mistress of the artist Maria Teresa Walter)" 1932

"Nude in an armchair" 1932

"Nude in an armchair" 1929

"Kiss" 1931

In the 30s and 40s, the bull, the Minotaur, became the hero of many paintings by Picasso. The Minotaur in the artist's work is the personification of destructive power, war and death.

"Minotauria" 1935

"Palette and bull's head" 1938

"Lamb's head" 1939

"Still life with a bull's skull" 1942

"Bull's skull, fruit, jug" 1939

"Three ram's heads" 1939

In the spring of 1937, the German fascists literally wiped out the small town of Guernica in Spain. Picasso could not ignore this event, and so the painting "Guernica" was born. This picture can be called the apotheosis of the Minotaur theme. The dimensions of the painting are impressive: length - 8 m, width - 3.5 m. One case is known related to the painting. During a search by the Gestapo, a Nazi officer noticed the painting and asked Picasso, "Did you do that?" to which the artist replied “No. You did it!"

"Guernica" 1937

In parallel with the canvases about the Minotaurs, Pablo Picasso creates a series about monsters. This series expresses the artist's position during the Spanish Civil War, in which he supported the Republicans and opposed the policies of the dictator Franco.

"Dreams and Lies of General Franco" (1937)

"Dreams and Lies of General Franco" (1937)

Throughout World War II, Pablo Picasso lived in France, where the artist became a member of the French Communist Party in 1944.

Wartime works (1937-1945)

"Pheasant" 1938

"Head of a woman in a hat" 1939

"Maria Teresa in a wreath" 1937

"Artist's Studio" 1943

"Maya with a doll" 1938

"Praying" 1937

"Still life" 1945

"Weeping woman with a headscarf" 1937

"Birds in a Cage" 1937

"Wounded bird and cat" 1938

"Crypt" 1945

"Woman in a red chair" 1939

In 1946, the artist worked on paintings and panels for the castle of the Grimaldi family in Antibes ( resort town France). In the first hall of the castle, a panel called "The Joy of Life" was installed. The main characters of this pano were fabulous creatures, fauns, centaurs and naked girls.

"The Joy of Being" 1946

In the same year, Pablo met the young artist Francoise Gilot, with whom they settled in the Grimaldi castle. Later, Picasso and Francoise had two children, Paloma and Claude. At this time, the artist often painted his children and Francoise, but the idyll did not last long: in 1953, Francoise took the children and left Pablo Picasso. Françoise could no longer endure the artist's constant betrayals and his difficult nature. The artist experienced this parting very hard, which could not but affect his work. Proof of this is the ink drawings of an ugly old dwarf with a beautiful young girl.

One of the most famous characters"Dove of Peace" was created in 1949. He first appeared at the World Peace Congress in Paris.

In 1951, Picasso painted the painting "Massacre in Korea", which tells about the atrocities of that "forgotten" war.

"Massacre in Korea" 1951

In 1947 the artist moved to the south of France, to the city of Vallauris. It was in this city that he became interested in ceramics. Picasso was inspired to such a hobby by the annual exhibition of ceramics in Vallauris, which he visited back in 1946. The artist showed particular interest in the items from the workshop of Madura, in which he later worked. Working with clay allowed the recognized painter and graphic artist to forget the horrors of war and plunge into another joyful and serene world. Plots for ceramics are the simplest and most uncomplicated - women, birds, faces, fairy-tale characters ... Even the book “Picasso Ceramics” by I. Karetnikov, published in 1967, is dedicated to Picasso ceramics.

Picasso in Madura's workshop

Published: May 3, 2015

Pablo Ruizand Picasso, also known as Pablo Picasso(October 25, 1881 - April 8, 1973), was Spanish artist, sculptor, engraver, ceramics, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his life in France. As one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th century, he is known as one of the founders of cubism, the inventor of assemblage, collage, and the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his best-known works are Proto-Cubist paintings such as The Maidens of Avignon (1907), Guernica (1937), and the depiction of the bombardment of Guernica by the German and Italian Air Forces ordered by the Spanish Nationalist government during civil war in Spain.

Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are considered the three artists who most accurately described the revolutionary events in plastic arts in the first decades of the 20th century, and are also responsible for the significant development of painting, sculpture, engraving and ceramics.

In children's and youth Picasso showed an extraordinary talent for painting in a naturalistic manner. During the first decade of the 20th century his style changed as he experimented with different theories, methods and ideas. His works are often divided into periods. Although the names of many of the later periods are still debated, the most widely accepted periods in his work are: Blue Period (1901-1904), Pink Period (1904-1906), African Period (1907-1909), Analytical Cubism (1909-1912) and Synthetic Cubism (1912-1919).

Pablo Picasso, 1901, "Old Woman (Woman with Gloves, Woman with Jewelry)", oil on cardboard, 67 x 52.1 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Exceptionally prolific throughout his long life, Picasso achieved universal fame and great fortune for his revolutionary artistic achievements and became one of the most famous figures in 20th century art.

early years

At baptism, Picasso was given the name Pablo, Diego, José, Francisco de Paula, Juan Nepomuseno, Maria de los Remedios, Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad, a number of names in honor of various saints and relatives. They were added by Ruiz and Picasso, his father and mother respectively, according to Spanish law. Born in the city of Malaga in the autonomous region of Andalusia in Spain. He was the first child of Don José Ruiz Blasco (1838-1913) and Maria Picasso Lopez. Although Picasso was a baptized Catholic, he later became an atheist. His family was middle class. His father was an artist who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life, Ruiz worked as an art professor at a craft school and curator of a local museum. His ancestors were minor aristocrats.

Pablo Picasso, 1901-1902, Femme au café ("The Absinthe Drinker"), oil on canvas, 73 x 54 cm, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

FROM early years Picasso showed passion and ability to draw. According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", short for "lápiz", which means "pencil" in Spanish. From the age of seven, Picasso began to receive formal art education from his father in drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a traditional academic artist and teacher who believed that proper training required rigorous copying of masters and drawing human body from plaster casts and live models. However, his son took up art at the expense of class work.

In 1891 the family moved to A Coruña, where his father became a professor at the School of Fine Arts. Here they stayed for almost four years. One day, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a dove. An apocryphal story tells that, observing the precision of his son's technique, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him. He vowed to give up painting, although there are paintings of his later years.

In 1895, Picasso was traumatized by the death of his seven-year-old sister, Conchita, due to diphtheria. After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, ​​where Ruiz took a position at the School of Fine Arts. The young artist grew up safely in the city, which over time he considered a real home. Ruiz convinced officials at the Academy to allow his son to take the entrance exam. For students, the process often took a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, and the jury accepted it. At the time of admission, Picasso was only 13 years old. As a student, he lacked discipline, but developed friendships that influenced his later life. Not far from home, his father rented a small room for him so that he could work alone, but judging by the drawings, he checked him several times a day. Both often argued.

Picasso's father and uncle decided to send the young artist to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, which was considered the foremost art school in the country. At the age of 16, Picasso set out on his own for the first time, however, young artist took a dislike to formal education and stopped attending classes shortly after enrolling. Madrid kept many other sights. The Prado houses paintings by Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya and Francisco Zurbaran. Picasso especially admired the works of El Greco; its elements such as elongated limbs, bright colors and mystical faces were reflected in the further work of Picasso.

The beginning of the creative path

Before 1900

Picasso's education under his father began before 1890. His progress can be traced in the collection early works, which is located in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, ​​and is one of the most complete collections among the first works of major artists, which has survived to this day. During 1893, the immaturity of his own early creativity, and in 1894 he can be said to begin his career as an artist. The academic realism easily discernible in the mid-1890s is well displayed in First Communion (1896), a large composition that depicts his sister Lola. In the same year, at the age of 14, he painted "Portrait of Aunt Pepa", a vigorous and dramatic image, which Juan-Eduardo Sirlot called "without a doubt one of the greatest in the entire history of Spanish painting."

In 1897, his realism took on a touch of symbolism in a series of landscapes presented in non-naturalistic purples and greens. This is followed by the so-called modernist period (1899-1900). Acquaintance with the work of Rossetti, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch, combined with admiration for such old masters as El Greco, led Picasso to his own version of modernism.

In 1900, Picasso made his first trip to Paris, later the artistic capital of Europe. There he met his first Parisian friend, the journalist and poet Max Jacob, who helped Picasso to study French and literature. Soon they lived in the same apartment; Max slept at night while Picasso slept during the day and worked at night. These were times of extreme poverty, cold, and despair. Most of the work was burned to heat the small room. During the first five months of 1901, Picasso lived in Madrid, where, with his anarchist friend Francisco de Asis-Soller, he founded the magazine Arte Joven ("Young Art"), which published five issues. Soler contributed articles, and Picasso illustrated the magazine, contributing mostly sombre images that expressed sympathy for the poor. The first issue was published on March 31, 1901, when the artist began to sign his works "Picasso"; before he signed them "Pablo Ruiz and Picasso".

"Blue Period"

Picasso's "Blue Period" (1901-1904) is characterized by gloomy pictures, presented in shades of blue and blue-green, which are only occasionally warmed by other colors. This period began either in Spain at the beginning of 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year. Many paintings of emaciated mothers with children date from the Blue Period, during which Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. Picasso was influenced by his trip to Spain and the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas, which led to an austere use of color and sometimes tormented subjects, prostitutes and beggars being frequent subjects. From the autumn of 1901, he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, which culminated in the sombre allegorical painting La Vie (The Life) (1903), now on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

La Vie ("Life") 1903, Cleveland Museum of Art

Infrared images of the 1901 painting The Blue Room show another painting underneath.

The same mood permeates the well-known engraving "A Meager Meal" (1904), which depicts a blind man and a sighted woman, both emaciated, sitting at an almost empty table. The theme of blindness recurs in Picasso's work from this period, and it is also represented in The Blind Man's Breakfast (1903, Metropolitan Museum of Art) and in the portrait of Celestine (1903). Other works include "Portrait of Soler" and "Portrait of Suzanne Bloch".

"Pink Period"

The "Pink Period" (1904 - 1906) is characterized by a more cheerful style, orange and pink colors and images of circus performers, acrobats and harlequins, known in France as "saltimbanques". The harlequin, a comedic character usually depicted in checkered clothing, became a personal symbol for Picasso. In Paris in 1904 he met Fernande Olivier, a bohemian artist who became his mistress. Olivier appears in many of his Rose Period paintings, most of which were influenced by their warm relationship, along with intense study french painting. In general, the upbeat and optimistic mood of the paintings during this period is reminiscent of 1899-1901 (i.e. immediately before the “blue period”), and 1904 can be considered a transition between the two periods.

Pablo Picasso, 1905, Au Lapin Agile ("In the Agile Rabbit"), oil on canvas, 99.1 x 100.3 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pablo Picasso, 1905, Garçon à la pipe ("Boy with a Pipe"), private collection, "Pink Period"

Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1906, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. When someone commented that Stein didn't look like the portrait, Picasso replied, "She will."

By 1905, Picasso had become a favorite of the American collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein. Their older brother Michael Stein and his wife Sarah also collected his work. Picasso painted a portrait of Gertrude and her nephew Alan Stein. Gertrude Stein became a major patron of Picasso, purchasing his drawings and paintings and exhibiting them at the unofficial Salon at her home in Paris. At an event in 1905, he met Henry Matisse, who became a lifelong friend and rival. Stein introduced him to Claribel Cohn and her sister Etta, who were American collectors; they also began to acquire paintings by Picasso and Matisse. As a result, Leo Stein moved to Italy. Michael and Sarah Stein became patrons of Matisse, while Gertrude Stein continued to collect Picasso.

In 1907, Picasso joined the art gallery, which Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler recently opened in Paris. Kahnweiler was a German art historian and collector. He became one of the leading dealers of 20th century French art. Kahnweiler was among the early curators of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and the Cubism they co-developed. He also contributed to the growth of such artists as André Derain, Kees van Dongen, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Maurice de Vlaminck and several others who came from all corners of the globe to live and work at that time in the Montparnasse area.

The transformation of contemporary art

Les Demoiselles d "Avignon ("The Girls of Avignon"), 1907, Museum of Modern Art, New York

"African Period"

Picasso's "African Period" (1907 - 1909) begins with the two figures on the right in the painting "The Girls of Avignon", inspired by African artifacts. The main ideas developed during this period led directly to the Cubist period which follows.

Cubism

Analytical Cubism (1909-1912) is a style of painting that Picasso developed with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colors. Both artists took objects apart and "analyzed" them in terms of form. The paintings of Picasso and Braque this time had much in common. Synthetic Cubism (1912-1919) was further development a style in which cut-out paper fragments, often wallpaper or parts of newspaper pages, were inserted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in the visual arts.

In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished circle of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, which included André Breton, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the writer Alfred Jarry, and Gertrude Stein. In 1911, Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. He pointed to his friend Picasso, who was also called in for questioning but was later released.

1909, Femme assise ("Seated woman"), oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm, State museums Berlin, New National Gallery

1909-1910, Figure dans un Fauteuil ("Seated Nude")

1910, La Femme au pot de moutarde ("The Woman with the Mustard Pot"), oil on canvas, 73 × 60 cm, Municipal Museum, The Hague. Exhibited at the Armory Show, in New York, Chicago and Boston in 1913

1910, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), oil on canvas, 100.3 × 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York

1910, Portrait of Daniel Henri Kahnweiler, Art Institute of Chicago.

1910-1911, Guitariste, La mandoliniste ("Woman playing the mandolin"), oil on canvas

Approx. 1911, Le Guitariste ("Guitarist"). Reproduced in the manifesto of Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger Du Cubisme ("On Cubism") in 1912

1911, "Bottle of Rum", oil on canvas, 61.3 × 50.5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1911, Le poète ("The Poet"), oil on linen canvas, 131.2 × 89.5 cm (51 5/8 × 35 1/4 ft), Solomon Guggenheim Museum, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

1911-1912, Violin, oil on canvas, 100 × 73 cm (oval), Kröller-Müller Museum

1913, "Bottle, clarinet, violin, newspaper, glass", 55 × 45 cm. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at auction at the Hotel Drouot in 1921.

1913, Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Eva) ("Woman in a shirt sitting in an armchair (Eve)"), 149.9 × 99.4 cm, Leonard Lauder Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art

1913-1914, Tête ("Head"), cut and pasted colored paper, gouache and charcoal on cardboard, 43.5 × 33 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

1913-1914, L "Homme aux cartes ("The Card Player"), oil, canvas, 108 × 89.5 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York

1914-1915 Nature morte au compotier

1916, L "anis del mono ("Bottle Anis del Mono"), oil on canvas, 46 × 54.6 cm, Detroit Art Institute, Michiga

Glory

After acquiring some fame and fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcel Humbert, whom he called Eva Güell. In many works in the style of cubism, Picasso included a declaration of love for Eve. In 1915, at the age of 30, she died prematurely from an illness, an event that devastated Picasso.

Pablo Picasso and stage designer sit on the intermission curtain for Leonid Myasin's ballet Parade, staged by Diaghilev's Russian Ballet at the Théâtre Châtelet in Paris in 1917.

At the outbreak of the First World War (August 1914), Picasso lived in Avignon. Braque and Derain were mobilized, and Apollinaire joined the French artillery, while the Spaniard Juan Gris remained in the Cubist circle. During the war, Picasso continued to write continuously, unlike his French comrades. His painting became darker, and life changed, leading to dramatic consequences. The treaty with Kahnweiler ended his exile from France. At the moment, art dealer Leon Rosenberg was supposed to take on the work of Picasso. After the loss of Eva Güell, the artist had an affair with Gaby Lespinasse. In the spring of 1916, Apollinaire returned from the front wounded. They renewed their friendship, but Picasso began to frequent new social circles.

Towards the end of the First World War, Picasso made a number of important contacts with figures who were related to Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris and others. In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina from the troupe of Sergei Diaghilev, for whom Picasso created sketches for the ballet Parade by Eric Satie, taking place in Rome; they spent their honeymoon near Biarritz at the villa of the charming Chilean philanthropist Eugenia Errazuriz.

Costume design, by Pablo Picasso personifying skyscrapers and boulevards for Parade in Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Théâtre Châtelet in Paris on May 18, 1917.

After returning from his honeymoon and desperate for money, Picasso began a special relationship with Jewish-French art dealer Paul Rosenberg. As his first duty, Rosenberg rented an apartment for the couple in Paris at his own expense, which was located near his home. This was the beginning of a deep brotherly friendship between two very different men that would last until the outbreak of World War II.

Khokhlova brought Picasso into high society, formal dinners, and all the attendant social niceties of life for the rich in 1920s Paris. Both had a son, Paulo, who grew up as a promiscuous motorcycle racer and later became his father's chauffeur. Khokhlova's insistence on social decorum clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies, causing both to live in a state of constant conflict. During the same period that Picasso was collaborating with the Diaghilev company, he and Igor Stravinsky were working on the ballet Pulcinella in 1920. He took the opportunity to make some drawings of the composer.

"Parade", 1917, curtain created for the ballet "Parade". This work is the largest among Picasso's paintings. Center Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France, May 2012.

In 1927, Picasso met the 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began secretly dating her. Soon the marriage of Picasso with Khokhlova ended. It was more like a break in relations than a divorce, since according to French law, in the event of a divorce, property was divided, and Picasso did not want to give Khokhlova half of his wealth. They remained legally married until Khokhlova's death in 1955. Picasso continued his longtime romance with Marie-Therese Walter, with whom he had a daughter, Maya. Marie-Therese lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her and hanged herself four years after his death. Throughout his life, the artist had several mistresses, in addition to his wife or main partner. He was married twice and had four children by three women:

Paulo (February 4, 1921 - June 5, 1975) (born Paulo Joseph Picasso) - from Olga Khokhlova

Maya (September 5, 1935 -) (née Maria de la Concepción Picasso) - from Marie-Therese Walter

Photographer and artist Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. They were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It was Maar who confirmed the authenticity of the Guernica painting.

Portrait d "Olga dans un fauteuil ("Portrait of Olga in an armchair"), 1918, Picasso Museum, Paris, France

portrait of Maria Theresa Walter, Date: 1937, Dimensions: 38 cm x 46 cm, Materials: Canvas, oil, pencil

Pablo Picasso, 1919, Sleeping Peasants, gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper, 31.1 x 48.9 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Classicism and Surrealism

In February 1917, Picasso made his first trip to Italy. In the period following the upheaval of the First World War, Picasso creates work in the neoclassical style. In the 1920s, a similar "return to order" manifested itself in the work of many European artists, including André Derain, Giorgio de Chirico, Gino Severini, Jean Metzinger, artists of the "New Objectivity" movement and the "Novecento" group. Picasso's paintings and drawings from this period often resemble the work of Raphael and Ingres.

In 1925, the surrealist writer and poet André Breton recognized Picasso as "one of our own" in his article Le Surréalisme et la peinture ("Surrealism and Painting"), published in the literary magazine La Révolution Surréaliste ("The Surrealist Revolution"). In the same issue, for the first time in Europe, a copy of the painting Les Demoiselles ("The Girls of Avignon") was published. However, at the first exhibition of the Surrealist group in 1925, Picasso exhibited works in the Cubist style; the notion of "mental automatism in its purest form", established in the Manifeste du surréalisme ("Manifesto of Surrealism"), never fully interested him. At the time, he was developing new imagery and a formal syntax for emotional expression, "releasing the violence, psychic fears, and eroticism that had been largely repressed or sublimated in him since 1909," writes art historian Melissa McQuillan. True, this transition in Picasso's work is due to cubism and its spatial relationships, as McQuillan writes, "the combination of ritual and impulse in the image is reminiscent of the primitivism of the "Avignon" and the elusive psychological resonance of his symbolic works. Surrealism revived Picasso's craving for primitivism and eroticism.

In the 1930s, the minotaur replaced the harlequin as a common motif in his work. The use of the minotaur came in part from the artist's association with the Surrealists, who often used it as a symbol, and which appears in Picasso's Guernica. The Minotaur and Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walther are heavily depicted in his famous Suite Vollard engravings.

In 1939-1940, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, under director Alfred Barr, and an ardent admirer of Picasso, held a major retrospective of Picasso's major works up to that time. This exhibition raised a buzz around the artist, opening his artistry to the general public in America, which led to a rethinking of his work by modern art historians and scientists.

Probably the most famous work Picasso is his portrayal of the German bombardment of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War - "Guernica". This large canvas embodies the inhumanity, cruelty and hopelessness of war. Answering a question to explain his symbolism, Picasso said: “It is not good for an artist to define symbols. Otherwise, it would be better if he put them on paper! The public that looks at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them."

For many years Guernica has been exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art. In 1981, it was returned to Spain and exhibited in the Casón del Buen Retiro (Cason del Buen Retiro building of the Prado Museum). In 1992, the painting was presented at the National Museum of the Reina Sofia Center for the Arts in Madrid at its opening.

World War II and beyond

During World War II, Picasso remained in Paris despite the fact that the Germans occupied the city. His art style did not conform to the Nazi ideals of art, so it was not exhibited during this period. Picasso was often persecuted by the Gestapo. During a search of his apartment, the officer saw a photograph of the Guernica painting. "Did you write this?" asked the German Picasso. "No," he replied, "You wrote."

Abandoning the workshop, he continued to paint, producing such works as "Still Life with Guitar" (1942) and "Crypt" (1944-48). Although the Germans banned bronze casting in Paris, Picasso continued to use bronze smuggled to him by the French Resistance.

Around this time, as an alternative, Picasso took up writing. In 1935-1959 he wrote over 300 poems. Most of them did not have a name, except for the date and in some cases the place where they were written (for example, "Paris May 16, 1936"). These works were a matter of taste, erotic and at times obscene, like his two multi-act plays Desire Caught by the Tail (1941) and Four Girls (1949).

In 1944, after the liberation of Paris, Picasso, then 63 years old, began a romantic relationship with a young art student named Françoise Gilot. She was 40 years younger than him. Picasso, tired of his mistress Dora Maar, began to live with Gilot. Over time, they had two children: Claude, born in 1947, and Paloma, in 1949. In his 1964 book Life with Picasso, Gilot describes him cruel treatment and the countless infidelities that led to her leaving him for the children. It was a serious blow to Picasso.

The artist had love affair with women with whom he had an even greater age gap than with Gilot. While still in a relationship with Gilot, in 1951 Picasso had a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte, who was four years younger than Gilot. By the 70s, many of his paintings, ink drawings and engravings feature an old, grotesque dwarf as a theme, madly in love with beautiful young models. Jacqueline Roquet (1927-1986) worked at the Madoura pottery in Vallauris on the Côte d'Azur, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. She became his lover and then his second wife in 1961. Both remained together until the end of Picasso's life.

His marriage to Roque was also Gilot's way of getting revenge; with Picasso's help, Gilot planned to divorce then-husband Luke Simon in order to marry Picasso to secure her children's rights as his legal heirs. After Gilot filed for divorce, Picasso was already secretly married to Rock. This created tension in his relationship with Claude and Paloma.

By this time, Picasso had built a huge Gothic house and could afford large villas in the south of France, like Notre-Dame-de-Vie on the outskirts of Mougins and in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. He was an international celebrity whose personal life was often more interesting than his art.

In addition to his artistic achievements, Picasso appeared in several films, each time as himself, including a cameo in Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus. In 1955, he helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso), directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Stanislav Lorenz conducts a tour for Pablo Picasso National Museum in Warsaw during the exhibition "Modern French artists and ceramics by Pablo Picasso" in 1948. Picasso donated more than a dozen of his ceramics, drawings and color engravings to the Warsaw Museum.

Latest works

Picasso was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited at the 3rd International exhibition sculptures held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in mid-1949. In 1950, Picasso's style changed again when he set about creating reinterpretations of the art of the great masters. He painted a series of works based on Velázquez's Las Meninas. Picasso also created paintings based on the works of Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and Delacroix.

He was commissioned to make the layout for a huge 50-foot (15 m) tall public sculpture to be built in Chicago, commonly known as the Chicago Picasso. He approached the project with great enthusiasm, designing the controversial and somewhat controversial sculpture. The figure represented is not known; it can be a bird, a horse, a woman, or a completely abstract form. One of the most recognizable landmarks in downtown Chicago, this sculpture was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to pay $100,000, donating the entire amount to the people of the city.

Last works Picasso was a mixture of styles, a way of expression in constant motion until the end of his life. Having devoted all his energy to creativity, Picasso became more daring, and his works more colorful and expressive. From 1968 to 1971 he created many paintings and hundreds of copper engravings. These works were dismissed at the time, mostly as the pornographic fantasies of a powerless old man or the sloppy work of an artist whose best years already in the past. Only later, after Picasso's death, when the rest of the art world had shifted to abstract expressionism, creating a critical community, did they see that Picasso had already discovered neo-expressionism and was, as before, ahead of his time.

Death

Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends over dinner. He was buried in the castle of Vauvenargues near Provence. He bought this house in 1958 and lived in it with Jacqueline in 1959-1962. Jacqueline Roque prevented the presence of his children Paloma and Claude at the funeral. Devastated and alone after Picasso's death, Jacqueline Roque committed suicide by shooting herself in 1986 when she was 59 years old.

translation of the english wikipedia article

Picasso Museum

Pablo Picasso. Avignon girls

Pablo Picasso painting Green bowl and black bottle

Pablo Picasso painting Dryad Pablo Picasso Bathing

To be an outstanding, unique artist, you need to be an extraordinary person, with a non-standard vision of the world around you, then unique canvases, new styles and trends in art are born. It is impossible to imitate such an author, you can only be inspired by his work and look for something new within yourself.

The profane often hurl remarks in the direction of avant-garde artists that they don’t know how to draw, so they depict cubes and squares. Picasso can serve as an illustration of the falsity and primitiveness of such a statement. FROM young years he knew how to reflect nature on paper with maximum resemblance to the original. The talent, which successfully got into the creative environment from birth (the father of the brightest figure in painting of the 20th century was a drawing teacher and decorator), developed at lightning speed. The boy began to draw almost before he could speak...

"Blue" period

The "Blue Period" is perhaps the first stage in the work of Picasso, in relation to which one can speak of the individuality of the master, despite the still sounding notes of influences. The first creative takeoff was provoked by a long depression: in February 1901 in Madrid, Picasso learned of the death of his close friend Carlos Casagemas. On May 5, 1901, the artist came to Paris for the second time in his life, where everything reminded him of Casagemas, with whom he had recently discovered the French capital. Pablo settled in the room where Carlos spent his last days, started an affair with Germain, because of which a friend committed suicide, communicated with the same circle of people. One can imagine what a complex knot the bitterness of loss, a sense of guilt, a sense of the proximity of death were woven into for him ... All this largely served as the "garbage" from which the "blue period" grew. Later, Picasso said: "I plunged into blue when I realized that Casagemas was dead" ...

"Pink" period

The "Pink Period" was relatively short (from the autumn of 1904 to the end of 1906) and not entirely uniform. However a large number of paintings are marked by light colors, the appearance of pearl gray, ocher and pink-red tones; new themes appear and become dominant - actors, acrobats, athletes. The Circus Medrano, located at the foot of the Montmartre hill, certainly provided a lot of material for the artist. Theatricality in its many manifestations (costumes, accentuated gestures), a variety of types of people, beautiful and ugly, young and adults, seemed to return the artist to the world of several transformed, but real forms, volumes, spaces; the images were filled with life again, in contrast to the characters of the "blue period" ...

"African" period

The first work that turned Picasso's brushes towards a new figurativeness was the portrait of Gertrude Stein in 1906. After rewriting it about 80 times, the artist despaired of translating the writer into a classical style. The artist was clearly ripe for a new creative period, and following nature ceased to interest him. This canvas can be considered the first step towards the deformation of the form.

In 1907, Picasso first encountered archaic African art at an ethnographic exhibition at the Trocadero Museum. Primitive idols, figurines and masks, where the generalized form was freed from the flickering of details, embodied the mighty forces of nature, from which primitive man did not distance himself. The ideology of Picasso, who invariably put art above all else, coincided with the powerful message embedded in these images: for ancient people, art did not serve to decorate everyday life, it was witchcraft that tamed incomprehensible and hostile spirits that controlled earthly life full of danger...

Cubism

Before cubism in European art, one of the main problems has always been the problem of lifelikeness. For several centuries, art has evolved without questioning this task. Even the Impressionists, who opened a new chapter in the history of painting devoted to light, fixing a fleeting impression, also solved the question: how to capture this world on canvas.

The impetus for the development of a new language of art, perhaps, was the question: why paint? By the beginning of the XX century. the basics of "correct" drawing could be taught to almost anyone. Photography was actively developing, and it became clear that images of a fixation, technical plan would become her domain. The question arose before the artists: how can art stay alive and relevant in a world where pictorial images becoming more accessible and easier to replicate? Picasso's answer is extremely simple: in the arsenal of painting there are only its own specific means - the plane of the canvas, line, color, light, and it is absolutely not necessary to put them at the service of nature. The external world only gives impetus to the expression of the individuality of the creator. The rejection of a plausible imitation of the objective world opened up incredibly wide opportunities for artists. This process proceeded in several directions. In the field of "liberation" of color, Matisse, perhaps, was in the lead, and Braque and Picasso - the founders of cubism - were more interested in form ...

"Classic" period

The 1910s turned out to be quite difficult for Picasso. In 1911, a story surfaced with the purchase and storage of figurines stolen from the Louvre, which demonstrated to Picasso the limitations of his own moral, human strength: he turned out to be unable to directly resist the pressure of power, and to maintain loyalty to friendship (during the first interrogation, he tried to renounce even the very fact acquaintance with Appolinaire, "thanks" to whom he was involved in this unpleasant incident). In 1914, the First World War began and it turned out that Picasso was not ready to fight for France, which became his second home. This also separated him from many friends. Marcel Humbert died in 1915...

Surrealism

The division of creativity into periods is a standard way to squeeze art into frames and sort it out. In the case of Pablo Picasso, an artist without style or, rather, an artist of many styles, this approach is conventional, but traditionally applied. The period of Picasso's proximity to surrealism chronologically fits into the framework of 1925 - 1932. As a rule, a certain Muse ruled over each stylistic stage in the artist's work. Being married to the ex-ballerina Olga Khokhlova, who longed to “recognize herself on the canvases”, Picasso turned from cubism invented by him together with Georges Braque to neoclassicism.

When did a young blonde enter the artist's life