The work of art we will focus on is "The Old Guitarist" by Pablo Picasso. It was created in 1904 in Barcelona, ​​Spain. It is about an oil painting on canvas and the dimensions are approximately 122.9 cm by 82.6 cm. It is currently exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection. Pablo Picasso dominated the development of the visual arts during the first half of the 20th century. Along with Georges Braque, Picasso is best known as one of the creators of Cubism, although he used many styles throughout his career. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't be banned"? Get an original essay In the paintings of his blue period (1901-1904), such as The Old Guitarist, Picasso worked with a monochromatic palette, flattened forms, and tragic and painful themes. Furthermore, El Greco, the terrible tenor of Picasso's life and the suicide of a close friend influenced Picasso's style in the period that became known as his Blue Period. The Old Guitarist was painted in 1903, soon after the suicidal death of Picasso's close friend, Casagemas in Paris. During this period, the artist was sympathetic to the plight of the oppressed and painted many canvases depicting the miseries of the poor, the sick and those marginalized by society. He too knew what it meant to become impoverished, having been almost penniless throughout 1902. This work was created in Madrid, and the distorted style (note that the guitarist's upper torso appears to droop, while the lower half appears to sit legs crossed) recalls the works of El Greco. The elements of The Old Guitarist were carefully chosen to generate a reaction from the viewer. For example, the monochromatic color scheme creates flat, two-dimensional shapes that dissociate the guitarist from time and place. Furthermore, the overall muted blue palette creates an overall tone of melancholy and accentuates the tragic and painful theme. The sole use of oil on panel causes a darker and more theatrical atmosphere. Oil tends to blend colors together without diminishing brightness, creating an even more cohesive dramatic composition. Furthermore, the guitarist, although muscular, shows few signs of life and appears to be close to death, suggesting little comfort to the world and accentuating the misery of his situation. Details are eliminated and scale is manipulated to create elongated, elegant proportions, while heightening the guitarist's quiet contemplation and a sense of spirituality. The large brown guitar is the only significant color change found in the painting; its dull brown, prominent against the blue background, becomes the center and focal point. The guitar comes to represent the guitarist's world and only hope for survival. This blind and poor individual depends on his guitar and the small income he can earn from his music to survive. Some art historians believe that this painting expresses the solitary life of an artist and the natural difficulties that come with the career. Therefore, music, or art, becomes a burden and an alienating force that isolates artists from the world. Yet, despite the isolation, the guitarist (artist) depends on the rest of society to survive. All these emotions reflect Picasso's difficult situation at the time and his criticism of the state of society. The old guitarist becomes an allegory of human existence. In The Old Guitarist, Picasso may have drawn on George Frederic Watts' painting Hope (1886), which similarly depicts a hunched, helpless musician with a distorted angular shape and a predominantly blue tone. This stooped, blind man holds a large guitar near himroundabout. Its brown body represents the only color change in the painting. Both physically and symbolically, the instrument fills the space around the lone figure, who seems unaware of his blindness and poverty as he plays. At the time the painting was made, the literature of the Symbolist movement included blind characters who possessed powers of inner vision. Picasso presented The Old Guitarist as a timeless expression of human suffering. The stooped, blind man holds his large round guitar close to him; its brown body is the only color change in the painting. The elongated and angular figure of the blind musician refers to Picasso's interest in the history of Spanish art and, in particular, in the great 16th century artist El Greco. From a personal perspective, however, the image reflects the struggling twenty-two-year-old Picasso's sympathy for the plight of the oppressed; he knew what it meant to be poor, having been almost penniless throughout 1902. His works from this period depict the miseries of the destitute, the sick, and the outcasts of society. Technical examinations, combined with art-historical research, several x-rays, infrared images and examinations by the curators revealed three different figures hidden behind the old guitarist. This information allows us to better understand Picasso's artistic process. Recent x-rays and examinations by curators found three figures peering behind the old guitarist's body. The three figures are an old woman with her head bent forward, a young mother with a small child kneeling at her side and an animal on the right side of the canvas. Despite the unclear images in crucial areas of the canvas, experts have determined that at least two different paintings lie underneath The Old Guitarist. In 1998, researchers used an infrared camera to penetrate the top layer of paint (the composition of The Old Guitarist) and clearly saw the second composition. Using this camera, the researchers were able to discover a young mother sitting in the center of the composition, holding out her left arm to the child kneeling to her right, and a calf or sheep on the mother's left side. Clearly defined, the young woman has long, flowing dark hair and a thoughtful expression. The Art Institute of Chicago shared its infrared images with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where curator William Robinson identified a Picasso sketch sent in a letter to friend Max Jacob . It revealed the same composition of mother and child, but had a cow licking the head of a baby calf. In a letter to Jacob, Picasso reveals that he was painting this composition a few months before starting The Old Guitarist. Despite these discoveries, why Picasso did not complete the composition with a mother and child, and how the elderly woman fit into the story of the canvas, remain unknown. A perfect complement is Wallace Stevens' poem, "The Man with the Blue Guitar." ." The poet puts into words Picasso's belief that art is the lie to help us see the truth. Stevens writes, "They said, 'You have a blue guitar, / You don't play things as they are.' / The man replied: 'Things as they are / Have changed on the blue guitar.'" As a metaphor for the need to completely immerse oneself in one's grief in order to heal, Denise Levertov's poem, Talking to Grief, is also suitable. The painting is worthy also of note for the ghostly presence of a mysterious image painted underneath. It is very likely that Picasso originally began painting a portrait of a woman, who appears perhaps seated and in a state of mind