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Samantha Wardell
Drawing
3:00pm Class
09/28/14
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso is one of the post important artists of the 20th century. His real name is
Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la
Santisima Trinidad Clito Ruiz Picasso. A lot of the name is from saints and relatives. He was
born in October, 1881 into a poor family in southern Spain. Picasso had a really hard and scary
birth. He was a very small and weak baby when he was born, so small and weak that the midwife
thought that he was stillborn so she left him on a table to go help his mother and make sure she
was okay. His uncle ended up saving him.

He was the first child born and started drawing at age 8. His mother said that his first
words were piz, piz which is short for lapis, Spanish for Pencil. Picasso trained with his father
who was a drawing teacher and showed that he was a true born artist. Painting ran in the family.
When Picasso was 9, he finished his first painting called Le Picador. It was of a man riding a
horse in a bullfight. Picasso started to go to Barcelona's School of Fine Arts where his father
taught when he was 13.

Picasso learned a lot from his father and studied with him for a year, then he went to the
Academy of Arts for a year before he moved to Paris. He moved to Paris in 1901 where he began
to experiment with many different forms of art. Pablo had his first exhibit at age 13 where he got
to show his paintings in the back room of an umbrella store. When he was 16 he was sent to the

Royal Academy of Madrid where students drew from plaster casts and copied works of the old
masters. Picassos father started to get mad at Picasso because he was not a very good student.
He was often sent to detention for not listening and he grew his hair out and started to wear
weird clothes. He thought that Picasso was wasting his talent and yelled at him to cut his hair.
He lived in a cold beat up house and would sometimes only have a piece of bread to hold him
over for a few days. He even had to burn some of his paintings to keep warm some nights when
he was living in Paris.

Picasso signed his first contract in Paris with art dealer Pere Menach, who paid him 150
francs per month which is about $700 per month now days. He began his work in surrealism and
cubism here and was the founder of them. Many pieces of art were influenced by these art forms.
Cubism is a style of abstract art and surrealism is doing art with your inner and subconscious
mind. Picasso made art that focused on new, colorful, and creative ways of looking at art. Art
wasnt just a two dimensional form to him. Cubism focused on how art could be seen in so many
different ways, angles, and dimensions.
Before he was 50 he was the most well-known artist in modern art and he has such a
distinct style even though he painted various forms of art. He was most known for his cubism
and modern painting. Picasso painted a painting unlike anything he or anyone else had ever
painted before. It was called Les Demoiselles Davignos and it introduced cubism to the world.
This piece used five women with their faces distorted in the picture and their bodies and they
looked like their heads were on backwards, so the people looking at the painting had to look at
the painting in more than one direction and angle.
Cubism became an abstract way of painting and the people looking at it could see what
they wanted to see. He focused on making different angles and different ways to view his work

so the people looking at the work could have their own thoughts and ideas on the painting, rather
than just looking at a picture and know exactly what it was. His work made it so everyone
looking at it could perceive it differently and have their own thoughts on the pieces. Every act
of creation is first an act of destruction- Pablo Picasso. Before Picasso there was no one else in
the whole world who had such an impact on the art world like Picasso did. He had so many fans
and so many inspired people following in his footsteps.
Picasso was constantly updating his style his work was separated into different periods.
The blue period, the rose period, the African influenced style period, and the cubism period
(along with surrealism, and realism). For his blue period he painted clowns, vagrants, and
prostitutes in lots of different shades of blue. They were sad, gloomy pictures. During the rose
period his paintings became warmer, and rosier and a lot happier. He used more pinks and
oranges in this period. They didnt change much from the blue period. African Influenced period
lasted from 1908-1909. Later in his life Picasso denied have inspiration from African art but
there were a lot of signs that showed he was. Cubism Period lasted from 1909-1919. This was his
main influence. He used women as his biggest inspiration as he reformed their bodies in his
paintings Picasso contributed so many valuable pieces of art throughout his life.
Picasso said, "My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If
you are a monk, you will become the Pope. Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.'" But .
He also did ceramic and bronze sculptures, drawings, etchings, and poetry. He also did paintings
of other famous artists paintings in his own style. Picasso used to think that someday he would
be more famous for his poems he wrote than his paintings.
Another part of his work that made Picasso different from other artist was that he put his
feelings and the outside world into each of his painting. For example, in 1937, there was a

bombing from the Nazis. After this Nazi Germany bombing, he made a painting called
Guernica, which is where the bombing took place. It was made to show that he wanted to end
the war and his support for it. He would use dark colors for war paintings to try to show that they
were hard times. Picasso would also mix war paintings with peace to show the different emotions
that he was feeling. He would paint these emotional painting that other artists wouldnt do
because of their emotional ties to the event. Picasso's most well-known Surrealist painting was
the Guernica. He painted it in black, white, and grays.
On august 21, 1911 someone stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and everyone went
crazy. A French newspaper came out offering an award for any information on the stole artwork
and a man who had stolen artwork from the museum four years earlier came forward. He said
that he has stolen a few of them for the poet Guillanume Apollinaire, who sold them to Picasso.
Picasso was taken to court and denied knowing that artwork he had purchased was stolen. There
was no hard evidence that Picasso stole Mona Lisa or had any ties to it, so he wasnt charged.
The real thief turned out to be Vincenzo Peruggia and he was caught in 1913 when he tried to
sell the Mona Lisa to a dealer. He said he stole the Mona Lisa to bring her back to Italy, but
people still think that Picasso had something to do with it as well. There were also rumors that
Picasso was left handed, but he was really right handed.
Ironically, more Picasso paintings have been stolen than any other painter. Picasso had
1147 pieces of art stolen, missing, or disputed. Thats about double the amount of any other
artist.
Picasso said, Love is the greatest refreshment in life. And he believed that greatly. In
1927, he saw a pretty blonde named Marie Therese Walter walking down the street and tried to
hit on her by telling her that she has an interesting face and told her his name was Picasso and he

would like to do a portrait of her. Marie was 17 and Picasso was 45, she never heard of Picasso,
but she let him do the portrait anyways. Picasso was married but had an affair with Marie and
they even had a daughter together. Picasso also had an active love life and usually had several
mistresses along with a wife. Picasso had four kids with three different moms. Some of Picassos
most expensive artwork was inspired by Marie Therese.
When Picasso passed at age 91 in April of 1973 from a heart attack. He was one of the
most famous and successful artists. He was known as the Father of modern art and had such a
big impact on the art world. Some of his paintings are the most expensive in the world. Many
people are still influenced by Picasso today. In fact, just last year some guy redid his whole car
from the influence of Picasso and cubism. He named the car after Picasso as well. Painting was
never the same after Picasso. With the introduction of Cubism he set aside traditional ways of
painting. Painters no longer painted exactly what they saw but put what they wanted into their
paintings. He opened up a new world to generations of artists who came after him. As I said,
Painting was never the same after Picasso. No artist had ever been as famous in their own
lifetime as Picasso was.

My Feelings and Impressions

Pablo Picassos paintings are one of a kind and so unique. I could stair at them for hours
because they are so interesting and full of life. I think that Picasso did a great job on all his
paintings and I really admire his work. For me, I think it would be extremely difficult to paint
how Picasso does, because I need to have a solid finish product in mind when I am drawing or
painting. Picassos are crazy and so creative, and I dont believe that he really knows what his
product is going to look like when he begins painting. I think he just goes with the flow to make
this awesome abstract drawings. His work is amazing and I can definitely see why he is so
famous for all his work and why so many people were influences by it. His pieces he made are
beautiful and keep you mesmerized why you stare at the subtle, yet complex detail of each piece.
I would never draw anything like him only because it scares me, but if I was talented enough to
make these cubism paintings, then painting would probably be my new favorite hobby. Picasso
dedicated his life to his art work and its amazing how much each of his pieces are worth.

Works Cited
Dennis, Felix. "Pablo Picasso." Mental Floss.
1 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
"Pablo Diego Jos Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Mara de los Remedios Cipriano de la
Santsima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruz y Picasso." Bio. A&E Television
Networks, 2014. Web. 28 Sep. 2014.
"Pablo Picasso Biography." Pablo Picasso.
1 Jan. 2009. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
Warncke. "Life." The life of Picasso at Picasso.com.
1 Jan. 2013. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
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