Cubism Spain Artist Old Guitarist

Painting by Pablo Picasso

The Quondam Guitarist

Artist	Pablo Picasso
Year	1903–04
Medium	Oil on panel
Movement	Picasso's Blue Period, Expressionism
Dimensions	122.9 cm × 82.six cm (48.4 in × 32.5 in)
Location	Art Institute of Chicago

The One-time Guitarist is an oil painting by Pablo Picasso, which he created in late 1903 and early on 1904. It depicts an elderly musician, a haggard man with threadbare clothing, who is hunched over his guitar while playing in the streets of Barcelona, Spain. It is on brandish at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.^[1]

At the time of The Old Guitarist 'southward creation, Modernism, Impressionism, Postal service-Impressionism, and Symbolism had greatly influenced Picasso'southward manner. Furthermore, El Greco, Picasso's poor standard of living, and the suicide of a beloved friend influenced Picasso'due south style at the time which came to be known as his Blue Menses.^[1] Several x-rays, infrared images and examinations by curators revealed three unlike figures hidden backside the one-time guitarist.

Groundwork [edit]

At the time, having renounced his classical and traditional didactics and searching for fame, Picasso and his friend Carlos Casagemas moved to Paris. A year later, Casagemas became hopelessly miserable from a failed honey affair and committed suicide. Picasso was profoundly afflicted past this event and was shortly depressed and desolate. In addition, Picasso was very poor. His poverty made him place and relate to beggars, prostitutes and other downtrodden outcasts in society.^[one]

These events and circumstances were the impetus for the offset of Picasso'southward Blue Menstruum which lasted from 1901 to 1904. The Blue Period is identified by the flat expanses of blues, greys and blacks, melancholy figures lost in contemplation, and a deep and significant tragedy. After the Blue Flow came Picasso's Rose Menstruation, and somewhen the Cubism motion which Picasso co-founded.^[1]

Analysis [edit]

Elements in The Old Guitarist were carefully chosen to generate a reaction from the spectator. For example, the monochromatic color scheme creates flat, 2-dimensional forms that dissociate the guitarist from time and place. In add-on, the overall muted blue palette creates a general tone of melancholy and accentuates the tragic and sorrowful theme. The sole use of oil on panel causes a darker and more than theatrical mood. Oil tends to blend the colors together without diminishing brightness, creating an even more cohesive dramatic limerick.^[2]

Furthermore, the guitarist, although muscular, shows little sign of life and appears to be close to death, implying footling comfort in the world and accentuating the misery of his state of affairs. Details are eliminated and scale is manipulated to create elongated and elegant proportions while intensifying the silent contemplation of the guitarist and a sense of spirituality. The large, chocolate-brown guitar is the just pregnant shift in colour institute in the painting;^[one] its irksome brown, prominent against the blue groundwork, becomes the center and focus. The guitar comes to represent the guitarist's world and just hope for survival. This blind and poor subject depends on his guitar and the pocket-sized income he can earn from his music for survival. Some art historians believe this painting expresses the solitary life of an creative person and the natural struggles that come with the career. Therefore, music, or art, becomes a burden and an alienating strength that isolates artists from the world.^[3] And yet, despite the isolation, the guitarist (artist) depends on the rest of guild for survival. All of these emotions reverberate Picasso's predicament at the time and his criticism of the state of gild. The Old Guitarist becomes an allegory of homo existence.^[1]

Paul Mariani, a biographer of Wallace Stevens, presented his assay of the painting as a counterpoint to objections raised by Stevens concerning the origin of his 1937 verse form titled The Homo With the Blue Guitar stating,

"Despite his repeatedly denying it, Stevens does seem to have a particular painting in heed here: Picasso's 1903 The Former Guitarist, which portrays an onetime homo with white pilus and bristles sitting distorted and cross-legged equally he plays his guitar. If Picasso attempted to portray the world of poverty and abject misery, information technology was because that had been his own plight every bit a struggling young artist in Barcelona, where he painted many pictures including this one, of the poor. The painting is almost entirely done in monochromatic blues and blue-blacks, except for the guitar itself, which is painted in a slightly warmer brown. The man is blind simply, no longer seeing the world around him, he sees more than deeply into the reality within."^[iv]

In The One-time Guitarist, Picasso may have drawn upon George Frederic Watts's 1886 painting of Hope, which similarly depicts a hunched, helpless musician with a distorted angular form and predominantly bluish tone.^[v]

Infrared discoveries [edit]

Detail showing an paradigm beneath

Recent x-rays and examinations by curators constitute three figures peering backside the former guitarist's body. The three figures are an old woman with her head bent frontwards, a young female parent with a small child kneeling past her side, and an animal on the right side of the canvas. Despite unclear imagery in crucial areas of the canvas, experts adamant that at least ii different paintings are found beneath The Quondam Guitarist.

In 1998, researchers used an infrared camera to penetrate the uppermost layer of paint (the composition of The Old Guitarist) and clearly saw the second-nearly limerick. Past using this camera, researchers were able to observe a young mother seated in the heart of the composition, reaching out with her left arm to her kneeling child at her right, and a calf or sheep on the mother'due south left side. Clearly defined, the young woman has long, flowing night hair and a thoughtful expression.^[half-dozen]

The Art Establish of Chicago shared its infrared images with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where curator William Robinson identified a sketch by Picasso sent to his friend Max Jacob in a letter. It revealed the same composition of mother and kid, but information technology had a moo-cow licking the head of a pocket-sized dogie. In a alphabetic character to Jacob, Picasso reveals he was painting this composition a few months before he began The Old Guitarist. Despite these discoveries, the reason Picasso did not complete the composition with a mother and child, and how the older woman fitted into the history of the canvas, remain unknown.^[6]

In 2019, researchers at University College London used neural network to recreate the painting found by infrared camera. The neural network was trained to recreate the painting from other works of Picasso during his Blueish Period. ^[seven]

In popular civilization [edit]

Every bit 1 of Picasso's more notable Blue Period works, The Former Guitarist has influenced other artists of all backgrounds. For instance, Paul McCartney drew from the painting when creating a chord progression. This progression and McCartney's accompanying melody were his contributions to the 2015 Kanye West song "All Day".^[viii]

Meet as well [edit]

The Man With the Blue Guitar, 1937 Wallace Stevens poem
The Blue Room
Femme aux Bras Croisés
List of Picasso artworks 1901–1910

Notes [edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^{due east} ^f "The Former Guitarist". The Art Institute of Chicago . Retrieved 2018-12-07 .
^ "Essay --". world wide web.123helpme.com . Retrieved 2018-12-07 .
^ Blue Period Music: The Old Guitarist Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine
^ Paul Mariani. Biography of Wallace Stevens. Page 226.
^ Barlow, Paul (2004). "Where there'due south life in that location's". Tate. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
^ ^a ^b "Examination Techniques". The Art Institute of Chicago. Archived from the original on 2008-ten-12. Retrieved 2020-07-18 .
^ Anthony Bourached, George Cann "Raiders of the Lost Fine art", arXiv, 2019
^ "Kanye West Reminds Paul McCartney of Andy Warhol, and Other Gems From the 'Rolling Stone' Interview". Artnet News. 12 August 2016. Retrieved 26 Dec 2020. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Sources [edit]

"Pablo Picasso's works, featuring: The Former Guitarist". 09 Mar 2011
Rimer, Bonnie. The Old Guitarist Meets New Engineering. Rep. The Fine art Plant of Chicago, 2001. Web. 25 Feb. 2011
"Picasso's Musical Instruments: Blue Menses Music: The Old Guitarist." Princeton University Weblog Service. Web. 10 Mar. 2011
"Pablo Ruiz Picasso Painting The Old Guitarist - TheArtistPabloPicasso.com." The Artist Pablo Picasso Art and Biography - Theartistpablopicasso.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011
"Symbolism." SJSU Digital Art Lobby. Web. x Mar. 2011