Picasso

June 17, 2025

0 Views 0

SaveSavedRemoved 0

Why should you care what about what I paint, why I paint, or why I write this blog? Especially when I entice you to read, and then leave you with a cliffhanger? Well, it’s because I want you to help me learn by engaging with me on these blogs. Some of you out there may be more knowledgeable on certain subjects, and some of you will have your own opinion. I want to break down my thoughts and the artists’ process into bite size pieces, always giving you some valuable information about art and how I think it is related to the science of health and well-being.

Sometimes I look at paintings not just one by one, but as a group. That’s what I did last year with my paintings. I struggled to find out what it is I wanted to convey to the world through my paintings, and I took time to think about it. My artistic endeavors took off in the 58^th year of my life. On a lazy summer drive home from Columbus, I promised my son I was going to finish 58 paintings to mark 58 years. When I looked at the 58 paintings as a group, one thing jumped out at me: the color! It was blinding and honestly, almost a bit too much! And then, I looked around my home – color abounds. My garden is colorful. My wardrobe is colorful. I did wear parrot green when it was not so cool, and hot pink when everyone else thought it was “Gauti” meaning from the village. I couldn’t care less.

Upon introspection and with considerable thought and observation, I began to see I lived in color. One year I decided to plant my garden in one color – red. It was so depressing to look at. Now how do you explain the color red to be depressing? Colors are interdependent – they can’t shine on their own. I swore never to do that again. I don’t think there is a color I am not inspired by. This observation took me back to my childhood. I wore color to lift my spirits, to cope with difficult exams and to brighten my day. When I looked around the world, people in the direst of circumstances wore bright colors. I wondered if color could be a panacea for depression. Does color uplift your spirits?

This brings me to Picasso and his Blue paintings painted mostly in the blue period (1901-1904) of his life. Historians think that these melancholic paintings mostly done in blue and later with a touch of pink, were done when he was depressed. It is said that he did not have a regular studio to work from, was short on funds and above all his friend Carlos Casagemas committed suicide in the winter of 1901. Almost all paintings of this period had melancholy writ all over. His subjects were societal discards, emaciated people, beggars and prostitutes. All had a sullen look, melancholic, cachectic and depressed. Slowly the blue period moved into the pink period where he added touches of pink to his paintings – a typical French influence as he slowly got out of his state of depression. Later his works became more colorful and joyful, and in 1907 he started the movement of cubism. I submit, I still don’t understand how his mind really worked when he pioneered this method!

Guitarist by Picasso

In 1937 he painted Guernica, a black and white painting done in grisaille, a technique using monochromatic grey tones. Picasso abhorred the military and he painted Guernica in protest of the destruction of this small sleepy town that was annihilated by the Germans’ aerial bombing under the authority of General Francisco Franco. He refused to let the painting stay in Spain while Franco was still alive, and pledged to allow it back when Spain became a democracy. Thus, in 1939 Guernica traveled to the MOMA in New York City, and then on to the rest of the world, until its return to Spain in 1981 after Franco’s death. The scale of the painting is massive. It was finished in 35 days, and is quite well preserved and alive 83 years later. I had the absolute joy and privilege of seeing this painting with my own eyes in 2019 at The Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain! It is regarded as the most powerful anti-war painting in history.