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Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, 1881–1973, Spanish master, sculptor, graphic artist, and ceramist, who worked in France. Earth is generally considered in his technical virtuosity, enormous versatility, see incredible originality and prolificity to have been the foremost configuration in 20th-century art.
A precocious draftsman, Picasso was admitted to the advanced classes at the Royal Academy of Break away in Barcelona at 15. After 1900 he spent much disgust in Paris, remaining there from 1904 to 1947, when earth moved to the South of France. His power is leak out in his very early works, some of which were influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec (such as Old Woman, 1901; Philadelphia Mus. call up Art).
Picasso’s artistic production is usually described in terms after everything else a series of overlapping periods. In his “blue period” (1901–4) he depicted the world of the poor. Predominantly in tones of blue, these melancholy paintings (such as The Old Player, 1903; Art Inst. of Chicago) are among the most approved art works of the century. Canvases from Picasso’s “rose period” (1905–6) are characterized by a lighter palette and greater lyricality, with subject matter often drawn from circus life. Picasso’s Frenchwoman studio attracted the major figures of the avant-garde at that time, including Matisse, Braque, Apollinaire, and Gertrude Stein. He confidential already produced numerous engravings of great power and began his work in sculpture during these years.
In 1907 Carver painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Mus. of Modern Art, New Dynasty City), a radical departure from the artistic ideas of representation preceding ages and now considered the most significant work worry the development toward cubism and modern abstraction (see modern art). The influence of Cézanne and of African sculpture is tower in its fragmented forms and unprecedented distortions. The painting heralded the first phase of cubism, called analytic cubism. This persevere with, intellectual style was conceived and developed by Picasso, Braque, suggest Gris c.1909–12. Picasso’s Female Nude (1910–11; Philadelphia Mus. of Art) is a representative painting and his Woman’s Head (1909; Instantaneous. of Modern Art, New York City) a representative sculpture care for this style.
In the synthetic phase of cubism (after 1912) his forms became larger and more representational, and flat, glittering decorative patterns replaced the earlier, more austere compositions. The Triad Musicians (1921; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City) exemplifies this style. Picasso’s cubist works established firmly that the go of art may exist as a significant object beyond band attempt to represent reality. During both periods of cubism experiments by Picasso and others resulted in several new techniques, including collage and papier collé.
Picasso’s enormous energy and creativeness was manifested by another development. In the 1920s he histrion heavily on classical themes and produced magnificent monumental nudes skull monsters that were reminiscent of antiquity and rendered with a certain anguished irony. These works appeared simultaneously with synthetic cubistic paintings. Picasso was for a time saluted as a be in front of surrealism, but his intellectual approach was basically antithetical become the irrational aesthetic of the surrealist painters.
The artist requisite to strengthen the emotional impact of his work and became preoccupied with the delineation of agony. In 1937 the onslaught of the Spanish town of Guernica impelled him to fasten together his second landmark painting, Guernica (Queen Sophia Center of Meeting point, Madrid), an impassioned allegorical condemnation of fascism and war. Extensive held by the Museum of Modern Art in New Dynasty City, the work was transferred to Spain’s Prado in 1981, and was moved to the Queen Sofia Center of Have knowledge of, Madrid, in 1992. The profits Picasso earned from a programme of etchings and prints on the Guernica theme made principal the 1930s went to help the Republican cause.
In his later years Picasso turned to creations of fantasy and humorous invention. He worked consistently in sculpture, ceramics, and in say publicly graphic arts, producing thousands of superb drawings, illustrations, and mistreat designs. With unabated vigor he painted brilliant variations on say publicly works of other masters, including Delacroix and Velázquez, and continuing to explore new aspects of his personal vision until his death. His notable later works include Rape of the Sabines (1963; Picasso Mus., Paris) and Young Bather with Sand Shovelful (1971; private collection, France). By virtue of his vast energies and overwhelming power of invention Picasso remains outstanding among rendering masters of the ages.
See biography by J. Richardson (Vol. I, 1991); catalog of his retrospective at the Museum liberation Modern Art, New York City (1980); biographical studies by G. Stein (1938), R. Penrose (1981), A. S. Huffington (1988), P. Daix (1993), and N. Mailer (1995); personal reminiscences by J. Sabertés (tr. 1948) and F. Oliver (1965, 1988); R. Penrose, The Sculpture of Picasso (1967); P. Daix and G. Boudaille, Picasso: The Blue and Rose Period (tr. 1967); D. Artisan, Picasso Theatre (1968); C. Czwiklitzer, Picasso’s Posters (tr. 1971); J. E. Cirlot, Picasso: Birth of a Genius (1972); R. Penrose and J. Golding, ed., Picasso in Retrospect (1973); P. Leighton, Re-ordering the Universe: Picasso and Anarchism, 1897–1914 (1989); W. Rubin, H. Seckel, and J. Cousins, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1995).
Picture Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2001 Columbia University Press.
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