As a 19-year-old, Picasso moved to Paris in the year 1900. He was quickly overcome by grief and despair as he attempted to make a meager living amid squalor. Picasso’s Blue Period, in which he painted in monochrome, developed out of his intense agony.
It All Started Tragically
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Casagemas, a close friend of a famous artist, committed himself. After that, blue became more prevalent in Picasso’s later works. Blue, the hue of sorrow, grief, and despair, represents Picasso’s gloomy mood, like in the navy paintings.
What Picasso’s Blue Period Symbols Mean
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Picasso’s Blue Period paintings evocate profound sadness and melancholy in subject matter and style. They’re technically monochrome, with clean, spare lines and effective arrangement. Without a sense of time or location, they seem to stand for the unchanging nature of suffering. You can likewise see Artwork Canvas if you enjoy abstract paintings similar to those Picasso’s vibes.
Though, Picasso’s paintings still have a sense of place and time. His works often make allusions to Spanish literature or Golden Age realism art as sources of inspiration. Greco, the painter, and Fernando de Rojas, the Spanish poet, are typically mentioned. Figures such as medieval mourners and the Virgin Mary also prominently feature, giving the work a solid religious undercurrent.
Picasso uses his art to bring attention to the marginalized members of society, such as the homeless, criminals, prostitutes, and the visually impaired. These photographs force us to stare at the realities of sadness, despair, mortality, poverty, and old age.
Important Creations from the Blue Period
Picasso produced The Self-Portrait near the end of 1901, a bleak reflection of his life at the time. When he looks at himself in the mirror, he lends his face a seriousness that doesn’t go with his age. A shattered visage mended garments, and a glum disposition characterized this unattractive likeness. These behaviors may have been the first signs of his eventual destructive nature.
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Picasso met venereal disease expert Dr. Louis Jullien the same year. He used him to access the Saint-Lazare women’s prison hospital, where he spent much time observing the detainees. Picasso, moved by their plight, turned the patients, who were primarily prostitutes, into virgins with children or madonnas. L’Entrevue, one of his works from the period, provides evidence of this sacramentalization of the feminine form.
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Life is a classic metaphor for the life cycle of this era. This artwork’s perpetual loop demonstrates mise en abyme. Represented are conception, birth, and death. But this piece is itself a collection of little paintings. Another form of revitalization, though, lies dormant under the painted surface. Picasso gives his painting large artwork, The Life, a second birth by covering it over.
When Sadness Gives Way to Happiness
First and foremost, Picasso’s blue paintings convey the despair of a young man confronted with the world’s brutality. Picasso’s interest in the world stems from his anguish and keenness to have it join him in his suffering. He gave up grief for lightness since it wasn’t profitable or a priority as an artist.
Although he still has his signature sadness, his 1904 introduction to Fernande Olivier inspired him to explore the more upbeat subject matter. Having acrobats and other performers around makes the whole place seem more joyful. The Pink Era has so officially begun.