Picasso: A Journey from Blue to Cubism

self-portrait by Picasso 1896

Young Pablo

Picasso attended the academies first in Madrid and then in Barcelona, but the teachers there had nothing to offer him. However, Barcelona gave him the opportunity to get to know and make friends with the painters who modeled the Bohemian life of Paris. Picasso began to feel more comfortable and freer. He wanted to see new painting movements in London and Paris. He set out for London in 1900 but stopped by Paris first. It is no coincidence that the first Paris painting he painted was the Moulin de la Galette, one of the favorite places of the impressionists, about whom he had heard a lot.

In October 1900, he came to Paris with his friend Carlos Casagemas. They started to stay in the studio of Isidore Nonnell in Montmartre, who decided to return to Spain. He found an art gallery that offered to sell the paintings before he went to his family in Spain. He returned to Paris the following year and learned that his friend Carlos had committed suicide after an unhappy love story. Picasso's paintings were dominated by blue from 1901 to 1904, a period known as the Blue Period. The reasons for the dominance of a single color in his works are only guessed, but it is certain that the death of his friend Carlos deeply affected Picasso and reflected in his paintings. Later in his life, he explained that Carlos was the reason why he chose the color in the Blue Period and used blue only.

Arrival in Paris and Artistic Influences

When he first came to Paris, he encountered a city that pursued new and different approaches to painting. Impressionism was well known, and its most important representative, Claude Monet, had an international reputation. Groups like the Pointillists challenged the Impressionists, while artists like Degas and Renoir followed their individual paths. Lonely men like Gauguin and Van Gogh were developing new styles of painting individually. Picasso initially experienced these new influences, but soon developed his own painting style. At that time, his followers formed a group, which became known as the Picasso Group.

By 1905, a new form of painting called Fauvism had developed under the leadership of Henri Matisse. Matisse and his friend Cezanne greatly influenced the direction of painting. But no one contributed more to painting than Picasso, who maintained his distinctive form and individuality while working alongside Surrealism, Expressionism, Futurism, and many more.

Picasso began to attract attention in the right circles after 1906. Parisian art critics were curious and cared about the 25-year-old painter, whose exciting works now competed with Matisse. Picasso left Paris in the summer of that year and went to a small village called Gosol. Access to this village was difficult, and goods were transported by mules. The paintings he started to make in this village showed that he had abandoned the compositions of the previous period and was trying a new form. A typhoid epidemic that broke out towards the end of the summer caused Picasso to leave Gosol. He took the paintings, sketches, and ideas he produced in this mountain village with him on his return to Paris.

The Birth of Cubism

The developments in the art of painting during the Renaissance period in the 15th century led painters to reflect their subjects realistically. The study of human anatomy and the use of perspective enabled painters to apply eye illusions, making their paintings appear as an extension of the real world rather than a two-dimensional surface. This painting tradition lasted until the 20th century, but Picasso’s work contributed more to changing this tradition than any other.

In Cubism, the ideal of portraying reality as it appears was no longer believed. Unlike the Expressionists, Cubists didn’t seek their themes through emotions; they acted much more rationally and analytically. They discovered a new method of systematically structuring paintings. They reassembled works by reducing them to cube, cylinder, cone, and sphere shapes, which are three-dimensional elements. At first, they used still lines for this drawing technique, combining objects such as mugs, bottles, glasses, books, or musical instruments. Instead of staring at the same object from a single perspective, Cubists worked from multiple perspectives. They painted from many angles at the same time, as if they were revolving around the object they were drawing. Their aim was to describe objects more comprehensively.

The Ladies of Avignon

Picasso made numerous sketches for this large painting, which has a surface area of more than two square meters. In the first version, a naked woman was seen with a sailor and a student in a brothel. As Picasso worked on the painting, the composition began to change gradually during the summer of 1907. He started to draw more women instead of students and sailors.

The most important thing in this painting was that the primitive understanding of painting produced a striking effect. The figures, sharply distinguished from the background, and the angular and absurd composition cause the eye to wander through the painting, following disfigured faces. With this painting, Picasso represents a radical break with traditional painting. The viewer no longer tries to understand the picture as an extension of the real world. There is no attempt at perspective or illusions to give depth to the painting. Picasso created a new painting style.

His drawing for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon also left the bottom half of the painting unfinished. This gives clues as to how Picasso worked: first, he outlined the figures with hasty brush strokes, then filled the emerging forms with color. Finally, he crossed over the angled lines in black. The brush, which creates independent strokes with each movement, does not have a flowing motion.

Each figure in the painting consists of various elements that are extremely different from each other. When compared, they have contradictory features. However, despite their contrasting nature, they maintain a coherence within the geometric framework. Just as there is no light to determine the form of the women's bodies, the merging of different perspectives in the same painting creates a sense of dissonance in space.

Picasso’s Legacy

Whether Picasso is the most important painter of the 20th century is still debated. He produced a large number of paintings, drawings, oil paintings, sculptures, and prints. Most modern art museums around the world have examples of his works. The works of Picasso, who gave a new direction to Western painting, are considered invaluable by art historians. It is said that he liberated painters from the pressure of realism, providing the opportunity for his followers to develop abstract painting. Looking back at the 20th century, it is a century that will be remembered for abstract painting, and this is largely thanks to Picasso. He later developed Cubism with his painter friend, invented the collage technique, and helped in the development of Surrealism and abstract art.

Aylin Satı

2021

Bibliography

"Pablo Picasso - Biography". Renssen Art Gallery, 2021, https://renssenartgallery.com/artists/26-pablo-picasso/biography/.

"Pablo Picasso Blue Period". Masterworksfineart.Com, 2021, https://www.masterworksfineart.com/artists/pablo-picasso/blue-period.

Gotthardt, Alexxa. "The Emotional Turmoil Behind Picasso’S Blue Period". Artsy, 2021, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-emotional-turmoil-picassos-blue-period.

"Pablo Picasso - Blue Period". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pablo-Picasso/Blue-Period#ref366497.

"Henry Ford". HISTORY, 2021, https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/henry-ford.

"Moulin De La Galette – Pablo Picasso  - Picasso Pablo". Tr.Painting-Planet.Com, 2021, https://tr.painting-planet.com/moulin-de-la-galette-pablo-picasso/.

Books

Warncke, Carsten-Peter et al. Picasso. Taschen, 2007.

Krausse, Anna-Carola. Rönesanstan Günümüze Resim Sanatının Öyküsü. Literatür Yayıncılık, 2005.

Sürmen Aran, Lale. Türk Gezginleri Için. Boyut Yayın Grubu, 2009.