Picasso: Influences behind His Work
Early Influences
Of all the 20th century artists Pablo Picasso is considered to have the greatest influence on the art and sculpture of the time. He has left behind the indelible imprint of his work on contemporary and subsequent works of others in the fields of painting, graphic art, sculpture and ceramics. Picasso derived inspiration for his art not from nature but from the works of art created by other artists. In his teens he experimented with contemporary avant-garde styles. His early paintings bore clear influence of the works of Lautrec and Cezanne. This was especially evident in his work during the Blue Period between 1901 and 1904 that was also influenced by his experience from his living in Paris as a student at the turn of the 20th century. His art from this period usually depicted impoverished and hopeless people dominantly in blue shade a good example being ‘The Old Guitarist’ (1903). His inspiration for using blue as a theme for his paintings was from the writings of Oscar Wilde and Maurice Maeterlinck who used this color symbolically to depict human madness. The expression of loneliness in Picasso’s blue period painting gave way to color and warmth in the paintings of Rose Period.
Influence for Cubism
Cubism was evolved separately by Picasso and Georges Braque. Picasso was influenced by the simplicity of African and pre-Christian Iberian sculptures and started exploring them in his works. Cezanne had already created basic shapes from the complex structure of nature which was combined by Picasso with the primitive styles of African and Iberian arts to found Cubism. His 1907 painting ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ can be considered the first work of cubism. He started using real materials for his cubist works, a style that came to be called ‘collage’. Thus his initial analytical cubism was developed into synthetic cubism which formed the basis of modern art.
Surrealism
During the twenties Picasso created his works both in cubist and classical styles. However his paintings of the thirties showed influence of surrealism.
