The Evolution of Pablo Picasso (ART 480) PDF

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Essay about Picasso's evolving style throughout the years (Spring 2020)...

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Davis 1 Courtney Davis Dr. David Lewis ART 480 April 16th, 2020 Pablo Picasso: The Evolution Pablo Picasso’s life was full of changes in approach, style, and choices of subject like every other artist’s. His stylistic evolution through his works is usually divided into periods: early work, the Blue Period, the Rose Period, the African Period, Cubism and more. Thanks to his artistic parents, Pablo started developing his art style at an early age and ended up with the traditional, realistic style. But as time passes, his paintings started to get less life-like into a more freeform, maybe avant-garde style. He famously said “the world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?” By 1901, Picasso seems to have completely abandoned reality as he goes in his “Blue Period,” which evolved from natural colors to only blue and other cooler colors. The period gives off, you guess it, a moody and depressing feel, most likely because of the emotional and mental impact from his friend’s suicide. The paintings showed melancholy monochromatic pieces of characters often in despair or poverty, painted with variety of blues and blue-green and other complimenting colors. Few years later, “Rose Period” came and ended the Blue Period with its lighter and cheery colors. The paintings’ focus turned to entertainers like acrobats and jesters, but there are still some characters same as the last period seen. Pink and light browns switched places with the blue and darker colors, giving off an uplifting feel. This could be because of his relationship with Fernande Olivier. While this period may not symbolize an entirely end of his sadness, it certainly ended his period of realism painting.

Last Name 2 Rather than realist, his painting transformed into a more of geometric style. New techniques were adopted. Houses, landscapes, faces and more were painted in a more fundamental change—shapes overlapping and intersecting at different angles. It became more about the form than the message, losing its character and detach from the things it was supposed to represent. To put Picasso’s evolution in a summary, he spent his early years learning the craft through the periods of experiment and eventually finding a personal style. Following mature mastery comes a late period which essentially plays a variation on familiar themes, but if you look closer, you can see his somber and doubts. He recalled the human image in monumental fashion but at the same time is painting his works in deconstruction of the said human image. His different works do reveal an artist using his own artistic methods with complete assurance, but in some cases though, not even common ground can be established. You can see that his work is the work of a talented pupil and there is little evidence for any well-planned distinction between the essential and unnecessary. The unusual lifelong devotion implied in Picasso's more-than-life-size artistic output demands to be taken seriously. This means looking with a critical eye, seeing the weaknesses along with the strengths, and so making Picasso's real greatness comprehensible. Many works of criticism have been devoted to certain areas of Picasso's creative work and have extended our understanding in important ways. Every age and every generation, however, will seek a new approach of its own to Picasso's art, will want a Picasso of its own....