8 little-known facts about the great art revolutionary Pablo Picasso

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

At the beginning of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso made a real revolution in art. His tirelessness in the search for new forms of transmission of his completely unique emotional vision was simply amazing. For this person, the result has always been in the first place. Pablo repeated tirelessly: "I am not looking, I am finding." Picasso became famous both as a painter and as a sculptor, was a master of ceramics and etching. The incredibly prolific artist has created over two tens of thousands of works! Check out the amazing little-known facts from his life.

1. Pablo Picasso was a child prodigy

The future artist of genius was born in 1881 in Malaga on the south of the Spanish coast. Little Pablo first learned to draw, and only then to speak. As a teenager, the boy even surpassed his father, who was an art teacher. Legend has it that dad gave his palette and brushes to his son and vowed that he would never touch them again. Picasso went to study at an art school in Barcelona. Usually it took a whole month to pass the entrance exams. Pablo did it in one day. When Picasso was already famous, he declared that in his youth he painted "like Raphael." After that, he added: "It really took me my whole life to learn how to draw like a child."

2. The brilliant artist constantly changed his style

As a teenager, Picasso painted fairly realistic portraits and landscapes. Then came the so-called "blue" and "pink" periods. This was between 1901 and 1906. Pablo painted poor children and circus scenes. In 1907, the artist created his first revolutionary work, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. It was a distorted portrait of five prostitutes. This painting opened the doors to abstract style and cubism. By 1912, Picasso had invented collage. He attached oilcloth, newspaper clippings and other materials to the canvases of his paintings.

All this, along with an increased emphasis on colors, hastened the transition from so-called analytical cubism to synthetic cubism. A little later, Pablo began to practice some form of neoclassicism. He recreated paintings by such masters as Diego Velazquez, Edouard Manet and Eugene Delacroix. At different times of his work, he included elements of surrealism, expressionism, post-impressionism and symbolism in his art.

3. Picasso was one of the founders of Cubism

Picasso belonged to the same bohemian social circles as many other artists and writers, including Henri Matisse, Gertrude Stein and Max Jacob. The closest creative ties connected him with Georges Braque. It was with him that he co-founded Cubism in 1909. Braque's paintings of that time are very similar to the works of Picasso himself.

Together, Braque and Picasso succumbed to the influence of the post-impressionist painter Paul Cézanne. The influence of Iberian sculpture and African masks was also felt in their work. Georges and Pablo loved to visit each other's studios and exchange creative ideas and thoughts. Braque himself called their relationship like two climbers tied by one rope. Their cooperation lasted until 1914, when Braque left for the army.

4. Picasso was more than just an artist

Although Picasso is best known for his painting, he did more than just that. The artist experimented with many different techniques. This included sculpture, ceramics, drawing and engraving. In the period from 1917 to 1924, he managed to work as a theater artist. Picasso created curtains, sets and costumes for several ballets. In the first of which Pablo was carried away by one of the dancers. She became his first wife and mother of his first son. The artist later had three more illegitimate children. In 1935, Picasso tried his hand at poetry. He began to write poetry and even became the author of two plays.

5. Picasso actively opposed the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco

In the summer of 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. The dictator Francisco Franco led a group of military men who opposed the democracy of the Second Republic. Pablo was a strong supporter of the Republicans. He created a whole series of anti-Franco prints. Also, the artist made a political statement for the first time. He stated that the military caste wants to plunge Spain into an ocean of suffering and death. Later he created Guernica. This painting was inspired by the horrific story of the Nazi bombing of civilians in the city of Guernica. In the painting, Pablo depicted a wounded horse, a decapitated soldier, a woman with a dead baby in her arms, and other terrible images of war. A huge eight-meter canvas is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

6. Picasso spent most of his life in exile

Even in his youth, Pablo moved from his native Malaga to A Coruña. Then he went to Barcelona, then to Madrid. Later he returned to Barcelona again. The artist left Spain in 1900. He lived in Paris for a long time. The French capital became his permanent home. Picasso never returned to Spain. I came a couple of times with short visits. Picasso created his most famous paintings in France.

7. At 62, Picasso became a communist

In 1944, Picasso joined the French Communist Party. This happened immediately after the liberation of Paris from the Nazis. “I saw there all the greatest thinkers and poets, resistance fighters, all whom I respect immensely,” said Pablo. In the fifties, Picasso wrote The Massacre in Korea. There, he portrayed US soldiers as futuristic knights who attacked pregnant women and children. In addition, the artist made a sketch of a drawing of how they tried to save the leader of the Greek communists Nikos Beloyannis from execution. Picasso even painted a portrait of Stalin.

Pablo did not always fit into the official line of the party. The French communists did not like the portrait of the Soviet leader. They condemned him for lack of perception. In 1956, the artist signed a letter expressing his protest against the invasion of the USSR armed forces into Hungary.

8 more Picasso paintings have been stolen than any other artist

According to the Register of Lost Works of Art, more than a thousand works by Pablo Picasso have been reported missing or stolen. This is indeed more than double that of any other painter. The most recent theft occurred in October last year, when robbers stole a Picasso painting and six other paintings on display in a Dutch museum.

Paris attracted not only Picasso. This is the place where all romantics come. Also, art lovers love the French capital for the fact that there is the Louvre. Read our article 5 little-known facts about one of the most popular museums in the world: the secrets of the Louvre