Pablo Picasso Essay

An old man sits with his legs crossed, his back resting against a bare cold wall. He is illuminated by an overcast sky shining through a large window at his back. His hair is white and thin with age, and his skin is wrinkled and worn down into a rough texture. He wears no shoes, and his clothes are tattered and torn. His body is skinny and long with hands whose thin flesh reveals the shape of every bone. He hunches his shoulders so that he curls around his only possession, his guitar. He is painted in solely shades of blue with the exception of his precious guitar, which is painted in cold browns. His head is lowered as if to look at his hands as he strums, yet his eyes are closed, ether from blindness or that he simply desires to not look, …show more content…
The poor and the outcast were a frequent topic for Picasso, especially during his blue period. His focus on these groups was due to his ability to relate them as he himself struggled through poverty during that time. His focus on these groups again points to the depression he was experiencing, but it also drew attention to these groups in that it placed these people on a more relatable level to the, most likely, wealthy audience that would have purchased Picasso’s works. However, this also caused his work to be disliked by many critics and potential buyers, which contributed to the poverty he was struggling with during that time.
The methods Picasso used to create the piece The Old Guitarist were used in his other works that he produced during his blue period. This repetition of these somber methods shows how heavily he was influenced by the depression he was experiencing. His blue period as a whole showed how much he was consumed by his emotions. The creation of these pieces were as much for Picasso himself as they were for his income, which he was short on at the time. Like how the guitarist used his music to express his emotions, by creating these pieces Picasso was able to vent his own emotions and better process