Ella Banka- When looking back at my childhood I think of art and, simultaneously, Paris. My mother went to art school there, and I can still vividly remember the first time she took me to the Centre Pompidou. There, I saw my first Picasso. It seems silly when I think of it now but I remember thinking kids had painted these wonderful works of art. The colors, the lines, and the way it excited you when you looked at one. At the young age of nine, Picasso made me want to be an artist.
Nine years later, I’m writing this blog post. What can I say about Picasso? He was born in Malaga, Spain in 1881 on the 25th of October. He lived in France for most of his life, and died at the age of 91 in Mougins. At a very young age he displayed amazing artistic abilities.
Why did I pick Picasso for this blog post, and why do I love him? To put it simply- he has a wide array of styles. He could do anything from realism to the now famous cubism. He mastered art and then revolutionized it- changed the history of art forever.
This piece is Study of a Torso. Picasso sketched it at the young age of twelve. It is clearly noticeable how talented the master was at such a young age. The shading and proportions in this sketch are near perfection, and the torso gives the illusion of coming alive. I like looking at early sketches like these because they give you an idea of how this artist came to be who he is. As his father was an artist himself, the young Pablo honed in his artistic skills early on in his life.
This next piece is Minotaur, a Glass in Hand, with a Young Woman and was created in 1933. We can see a great contrast with the previous piece- this one is more dramatic in style and contains a great deal of lines and detail. This is what someone would recognize as Picasso’s work, as it incorporates some of the elements that can be seen in some of his cubist works. For example, the shape and size of the woman is exaggerated and distorted, to the point that the viewer has to look closely in order to recognize the figure as a woman.
This last piece is Portrait of Jacqueline. It is a portrait of his second wife, and was completed in the year 1961. Unlike the other works that I present here, this one is oil on canvas. I like how completely distorted the picture is. It has that classic almost cartoonish element to it that we so associate Picasso with. This is an example of cubism at its finest. Although not one of his most famous works, I like the subtlety of the piece.
Bibliography:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/artdesign/story/2007/02/28/picassostolen.html
http://www.suedkurier.de/region/kreis-konstanz/singen/Picasso-und-der-Stier;art372458,539313
http://smarthistory.org/Picasso-Early-Work.html
Ocana, Maria Teresa. Picasso- The Development of a Genius (1890-1904). Lurwerg Editores, 1997.
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