Pablo Picasso was one of the leading artists in the twentieth-century. Together with Georges Braque, he developed a new style of painting called Cubism. Picasso paintings are today some of the most admired and loved.
Picasso's painting career can broadly be divided into five stages:
The Blue Period
The Rose Period
The African Influenced Period
Analytic Cubism Period
Synthetic Cubism Period
The Blue Period(1901-1904) :
The Picasso paintings of this period are somber and emotional. They were influenced by the recent death of a close friend and by a trip through Spain. The works depict acrobats, harlequins, beggars, prostitutes and artists. They are characterized by a distinct blue tint.
The most famous Picasso painting of this period is The Old Guitarist (1903).
This well known Picasso painting depicts a blind man in rags huddled with a guitar. There is a ghostly portrait of a woman underneath the painting. This leads us to believe that Picasso possibly originally painted a seated woman.
Other paintings of this period are Dama en Eden Concert (1903), La Vida (1903), Las dos hermanas (1904).
The Rose Period (1905-1907) :
The Picasso paintings of this period are noticeably more cheerful than those of The Blue Period. He employs happier colors like orange and pink. This change in style can perhaps be attributed to Picasso's happy personal life at the moment: he was in a fulfilling relationship with Fernande Olivier. The paintings of this period are also believed to be French inspired. Picasso's highest selling painting belongs to this period. This is the Garcon á la pipe (Boy with a Pipe) . This famous Picasso painting depicts a Parisian boy holding a pipe in his left hand. It sold for 104.1 million at an auction in Sotheby's in New York. In 1905, he also portrayed a group of circus workers in Family of Saltimbanques .
Other popular Picasso paintings of this period are Woman in a Chemise (Madeleine) (1904-2905), Harlequin Family (1905), The Girl with a Goat (1906).
