Picasso's Blue Period

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The Blue Period (Spanish: Período Azul) comprises the works produced by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso between 1901 and 1904. During this time, Picasso painted essentially monochromatic paintings in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors. These sombre works, inspired by Spain and painted in Barcelona and Paris, are now some of his most popular works, although he had difficulty selling them at the time. This period's starting point is uncertain; it may have begun in Spain in the spring of 1901 or in Paris in the second half of the year. In choosing austere color and sometimes doleful subject matter—prostitutes, beggars and drunks—Picasso was influenced by a journey through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carles Casagemas, who took his own life at the L'Hippodrome Café in Paris, France on February 17, 1901. Although Picasso himself later recalled, "I started painting in blue when I learned of Casagemas's death", art historian Hélène Seckel has written...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Pablo Picasso (Life time: 1973), PD-US