The Deconstruction of Pablo Picasso

Recently a painting was sold for a sum that was close to $100 million. Most of the people in the world cannot even dream of such a sum of money, but it was paid for one solitary painting of a boy. The most astonishing part of the whole deal is that most art critics think that the buyer got the painting for a bargain and he will be able to sell it for a much higher price.

That painting was painted by an artist called Pablo Picasso. Picasso is arguably the best painter to ever walk the face of the earth. Now that is a pretty big statement to make when there were others such as Renoir, Monet, Manet, Da Vinci, Van Gogh etc. But the most distinctive aspect of Picasso was that he refused to be compartmentalized in a particular style. He managed to master various different styles; the most famous amongst them was of course Cubism. Other than Cubism he spent considerable time mastering; realism, modern art, caricature, the Blue Period, and the Rose Period. He was very prolific in each of these styles. The painting mentioned at the beginning of this essay belongs to the Blue Period.

Pablo Picasso was born in 1881 in Spain and it was obvious to everyone that he had an extraordinary talent with the paintbrush. His father was an art teacher and he guided him in every way possible. As a teenager he would hang out at the cafes in Barcelona and avidly listened to the intellectuals there. He then went to Paris to further his education is art and dissected the works of Henri Rousseau, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec. By 1901, he had begun to make a reputation as a formidable painter. Between 1901 and 1904, which was the Blue Period for Picasso he came out with a number of masterpieces. His painting La Vie (1903), which was created in memory of his childhood friend, the Spanish poet Casagemas is considered to be priceless should it ever, be put out for sale. The paintings from this period have predominantly blue tones and very effectively capture the underbelly of society. He also began sculpting during this period.

As soon as the Blue Period ended he embarked on the Rose Period. These paintings used colors and character, which were more pleasing to the eye, but they themselves seemed depressed and sad. The characters used were clowns and pantomimes. Picasso’s paintings then took on a new look when he began to dabble in classical themes. He began to hero worship Henri Matisse for his shocking colors and Henri Rousseau for his caricaturish style. Picasso began to use full frontal images of large male and female figures.

It was only in the 1920s that Picasso began his journey in Cubism. By this time he was recognized as the most famous painter in the world if not the best. He teamed up with Georges Braque and produced distortions of the human body that were beyond the imagination of even acclaimed painters. He also produced outstanding work that related to various Roman mythological figures. Post-cubism his paintings reflected his obsession with sex and the nude female form.

Picasso however was extremely controversial when it came to the women in his paintings and out of them. He made a famous remark that women were either "goddesses or doormats." There were a string of mistresses and it seemed like each period resulted in a different mistress. Many women were immortalized in his paintings especially those that were around during his Cubism phase. His art and he himself survived the Nazi invasion of Paris because though they considered him to be a pest and his work a bad influence on society he was undeniably famous. Picasso openly pledged his support for Joseph Stalin but people all over the world seemed to ignore it.

There have been accusations that there were others who were better than Picasso but less prolific. But being prolific is not a vice and the quality of his work never dipped. There have been movements in the 20th century that were inspired by his work. There is no painter who can claim to be anywhere close to Picasso as far as versatility is concerned. He was one painter who broke the rule that it is only after a painter dies that he becomes famous.