| The Old Guitarist By Pablo Picasso |
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One of the most celebrated of Pablo Picasso's paintings is the "Old Guitarist" which hangs in the galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting is from Picasso's "Blue Period" where all his work was of course done in blue.
The scene is stark and makes you want to give assistance to the poor man. The white hair and tones on his face give age and lack of good health to his appearance. He is so thin that one wonders how long could he sustain himself without proper nourishment. The scene is despairing and almost hopeless, the only support that the poor man has is from the wall to the right behind him. The guitar is the only thing in the painting that is not blue and it is in two shades of pale green. There are no strings on the guitar, Picasso must have intended this to illustrate the simplicity of the composition, adding exacting detail such as guitar strings would take away the affect that he was looking for. I would like to address another element unknown to most people and that is the under painting. When you approach the piece you have to stop and absorb all that you can. After this start to look at the painting underneath. You will see the outline of a female behind the head of the guitarist, her face can be seen and her eyes very much so. The contour of her body which include her legs are all rendered. Obviously the guitarist was a later creation and Picasso decided to paint over the female either because he had no other canvases available or he just did not like the first piece. |
The painting is not very large in size but titanic in what it has to offer. What we have here is a figure of an old man sitting on the ground holding his guitar. He is bent over almost expressing a state of despare but has hope in the music that he can make from his guitar. Clearly he is very poor for the little clothing that he has on for they are tattered and torn. He sits on what looks like the ground not a chair or bed, he does not even have a pillow or blanket to cushion him or offer some support. It appears that he is on the streets out outside because if you look carefully at the wall behind his head there is a beveled edge in a lighter shade of blue just above the base of the wall.