Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881 – 1973) was a naturally gifted Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist & theatre designer. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of the constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage & a wide variety of styles to develop & explore art. Exceptionally prolific, Picasso achieved universal fame & immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments.
Picasso’s Blue Period (1901–1904) is characterised by sombre paintings rendered in shades of blue & blue-green only, occasionally warmed by other colours. The Rose Period (1904–1906) symbolises a lighter tone & style with orange & pink colours featuring acrobats. Analytic cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed using monochrome brown & neutral colours, where he took apart objects & analysed them in terms of their depth & shapes. Synthetic cubism (1912–1919) was a further exploration of cubism in which cut paper or newspapers were used for collage fine art.
Post the upheaval of World War I, Picasso produced work in a neoclassical style. Used colour as an emotion, as an expressive element, but relied on drawings to create form & space. Sometimes, added sand to vary texture. Although his Cubist works approach abstraction, Picasso never relinquished the objects of the real world as subject matter.
“Everything you can imagine is real. Others have seen what is & asked why. I have seen what could be & asked why not? The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
