| Pablo Ruiz Picasso is a Spanish artist, sculptor, graphic artist, ceramist and designer.
The founder of cubism (together with George Braque), in which tri-plane objects in an original manner were drawn as a series of planes combined together. Picasso worked mainly as a graphic artist, sculptor, ceramist etc. He influenced a number of copyists and rendered an exclusive impact on the development of fine arts in the 20th century.
Cubism:
From experiments with color and mood shifts, Picasso addressed the analysis of form: the conscious deformation of nature (“Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”, 1907), the one-sided interpretation of the Cezanne system and hobby for African sculpture lead to an absolutely new genre. Together with George Braque, whom Picasso met in 1907, Picasso became the co-founder of cubism – the artistic direction, rejecting the traditions of naturalism and the graphic-informative function of art.
Picasso paid special attention to the transformation of forms into geometric blocks, increases and breaks volumes (“Fernando Olivier's Portrait”, 1909), dissects them into planes and sides, continuing in space, which he considers as a solid body, inevitably limited by the plane of the painting in his portraits. Perspective disappears and the palette attracts towards monochrome and though, the initial purpose of cubism was to simulate the perception of space and the weights of bodies more convincingly than with the help of traditional receptions and frequently, Picasso's pictures are reduced to obscure rebuses. To return the connection with reality, Picasso and George Braque used a typographic font, the elements “Blendes” and crude materials - wall-paper, pieces of newspapers, and matchboxes in their paintings. Still-life, predominantly with musical instruments, tubes and boxes for tobacco, notes, wine bottles start dominating are the attributes, inherent to way of life of art bohemia in the beginning of century. “Cubist cryptography” appears in compositions: ciphered phone numbers, houses and fragments of names of beloved persons, street names and pubs. The techniques of collage connects the sides of cubist prisms in big planes (“Guitar and violin”, 1913) or conveys openings in a quiet and comic manner, made in 1910-1913 (“Portrait of girl”, 1914). During the “Synthetic” period, appears the tendency towards color harmonization, counterbalanced compositions, which are inscribed in an oval at times. Actually, the cubist period in Picasso's creativity came to an end soon after the beginning of the First World War, which separated him and George Braque. Though in his considerable works, the artist uses some cubist receptions up to 1921 (“Three musicians”, 1921).
Legacy:
Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins (France) in his villa Notre-Dame-de-Vie. He was buried in Castle Vauvenargues Park, which belongs to him.
Picasso's museum was opened in Barcelona thanks to the artist, who in 1970 gifted his works to the city. In 1985, a Picasso Museum was opened in Paris (Hotel Sale); works handed-over by the successors of artist - more than 200 paintings, 158 sculptures, collages and thousand drawings, prints and documents and also Picasso's personal collection are housed here. New gifts of successors (1990) enriched Picasso's Paris Museum, the City museum of Modern Art in Paris and some provincial museums (paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, engravings and lithographs).
Picasso is a laureate of the International Stalin Peace Prize (1950) and the International Lenin Peace Prize “For strengthening peace between people” (1962).
Picasso had an enormous impact on artists from all countries, becoming one of the most popular artists in the 20th century.
In the News: A new, astounding record has been set in the art world. The painting by Pablo Picasso "Boy With the Pipe" sold for $104,168,000 at Sotheby's. The price, which does include the auction house's commission, far surpassed the old record of $82.5 million. That price was put on Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet." The van Gogh has held the title since 1990. While the identity of the person who bought the Picasso painting masterpiece at auction was not revealed, the auctioneer - Tobias Meyer - did reveal that the seller of the work purchased the painting in 1950 for about $30,000. Quite a return on the seller's investment to be sure.
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