Pablo Picasso is a very well known artist of the 20th century and his work is still famous today. Picasso went through many time periods, but his most famous ones are the blue period, the rose period, and cubism. Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain, in 1881. Picasso was raised by his mother Dona Maria and his father Don Jose Ruiz Blasco. Picasso’s father was an art teacher and started teaching him how to draw as a child. “By the time he was 13 years old, his skill level had surpassed his fathers” (“Pablo Picasso Biography”).
Attending school was a challenge for Picasso because all he wanted to do was doodle and that caused him to get in trouble. “In 1895, when Picasso was 14 years old, he moved with his family to Barcelona, Spain. Picasso quickly applied to the city’s prestigious School of Fine Arts” (“Pablo Picasso Biography”). Picasso also had a hard time at this school because he wanted to learn more cultural aspects instead of the recurring classical subjects. Picasso would skip classes and roam the streets to sketch more interesting scenes from around the city.
In 1889, Picasso met a group of Artists that changed his mind on how he wanted to make art (biography. com). Picasso’s change in art caused him to move to Paris in the 1900’s and create the Blue Period. Picasso’s close friend Carlos Casagemas had committed suicide and Picasso was deeply depressed. Carlos was depicted in many of Picasso’s work around 1901. Because of Carlos’ death, Picasso’s favorite color to paint in was blue and that inspired the name of the Blue Period (biography. com). Picasso painted his pictures to represent poverty, instability, beggars, the old, the frail, and the blind (Pablo Picasso’s. rg).
Picasso got over his depression and started painting more vibrant colors in 1904 such as pink, red, beige, and orange. This time period of Picasso’s was named the “The Rose Period”. It is believed that Fernande Olivier, a beautiful model, was the cause of Picasso’s happiness and inspired the Rose Period. During this time, Picasso style of being a figurative painter ended as he moved on to cubism (Pablo Picasso’s. org). In 1907, Picasso painted a painting with a technique never used before. This painting style is called Cubism.
Cubism is when artist paint pictures using abstract geometrical shapes. Cubism surprised and fascinated everyone. Braque said. ” It made me feel as if someone was drinking gasoline and spitting fire”. People explained cubism as ” using reality merely as a means and not as an end”. Soon Picasso moved even further in techniques and used tiny pieces of art to make collages of Cubism. From Cubism Picasso’s art style turned to more classical techniques. This made Picasso even more popular and wealthy (biography. com). Picasso’s Classicist time period was told to be encouraged by his new wife Olga.
Olga was a big time ballet dancer and inspired Picasso to be more classical and soon enough he had a new apartment and his parties became more formal. Olga and Picasso birthed a son named Paulo in 1921. The birth of Paulo caused Picasso to start painting mother and child pictures. Picasso started to not like the fame and attention he was getting from the community. According to arthistoryarchive. com , Picasso wrote, “Of all the misfortunes – hunger, misery, being misunderstood by the public – fame is by far the worst. This is how God chastises the artist.
It is sad. It is true”. Olga being the big ballet dancer she was, could not understand why Picasso didn’t like the fame. Soon after this issue, Pablo had an affair with Paulo’s seventeen year old nurse Marie Therese Walters. In 1927 Surrealism took action in Picasso’s work. Sooner than later, surrealism became vastly popular to a wide range of people. Many of Picasso’s surrealism art pieces depicted different aspects of Therese Walters. Picasso claimed that during 1935 was the worst time of his life. Therese Walters was pregnant with Picasso’s girl Maya.
This caused Olga and Picasso’s divorce harder and harder because they each had a lot of wealth and that triggered lawyers. During this time of financial trouble, Picasso started including the picture of a bull in a lot of his art works (arthistoryarchive. com). Picasso got through his tough time and went through peace movements when he joined the Communist Party. Picasso created the dove that represents the symbol of peace. In 1950, Picasso earned a peace prize from the USSR and in 1961 he earned his second one. Picasso moved houses and lived at the Chateau Vauvenargues and started to paint in whit and green.
Pablo Picasso started to die out in the publics eye. The public believed Picasso painted pictures as a hobby and nothing special for anyone who encountered it. The thing about Picasso was the fact he didn’t care about anyone else’s criticism. Picasso only cared about what he though about his paintings and everyone else’s opinion seemed so little to him. Pablo Picasso changed the form of art for every one. Each one of Picasso’s movements left an impact on the art world. On April 8, 1973, at the age of 92, Pablo Picasso passed away. Picasso was buried at his home in Chateau Vauvenargues.