picasso

Pablo Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Following Picasso’s Blue Period was his contrasting “Rose Period”, characterized by a warm blush color palette, between 1904 and 1906. These paintings had a more French influence, and were inspired by harlequins and circus performers, which Picasso identified with. These works embodied Picasso’s new optimism as a young artist. The Rose Period’s elements and motifs were informative of his later Primitivist and abstract works.

Pablo Picasso, Acrobat’s Family with a Monkey (Famille au Singe), 1905, Göteborgs Konstmuseum

“The Blue Period”

art history / Alexandra Kosloski

Pablo Picasso, The Blue Room, 1901, The Phillips Collection

Pablo Picasso’s “Blue Period” refers to the paintings the artist made in his early twenties, following the suicide of his friend, the painter and poet Carles Casagames. The deep blue color palette, and austere subject matter that characterizes this period reflects the artist’s psychological unwellness. In the years of this period, from 1901-1904, the themes of poverty, death, loneliness and portraits of society’s outcasts were considered grotesque, and were very unpopular at the time.

Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist, 1903-1904, The Art Institute Chicago

“The Blue Period” Read More »

art history

“The Rose Period”

“The Blue Period”