can u help me?

Question

I have an art project to do about a picasso painting called the blind guitarist..could u tell me more about it?

Answer 1

"Draped in blue rags, an emaciated old guitarist sits cross-legged, strumming his guitar in a desolate setting. He is WRAPPED in his music and grief. Like the blind prophet, Tiresias in the Greek tragedies, he has seen all and knows the tragic destination of our strivings--all result in loneliness and death. Painted in Barcelona, the distorted style is reminiscent of the drama found in Spanish religious painting, particularly that of El Greco. The melancholy and pathos of Picasso's works from his Blue period reflect his sadness at the suicide of his young friend, Casagemas.
CommentaryA perfect companion piece is Wallace Stevens's poem, "The Man with the Blue Guitar." The poet puts words to Picasso's belief that art is the lie to help us see the truth. Stevens writes: "They said, 'You have a blue guitar, / You do not play things as they are.' / The man replied, 'Things as they are / Are changed upon the blue guitar.'" As a metaphor for the need to immerse oneself fully in one's grief in order to heal, Denise Levertov's poem, "Talking to Grief" (see this database) is also apropos.

Picasso's Blue (and Rose) Periods are preambles to Cubism. The artist wrote off his early Blue Period paintings (painted when he was 22) as nothing but sentiment. Also of interest are his many renderings in oil on cardboard and canvas, or black chalk on paper, of the dead Casagemas in his coffin [e.g. "Head of the Dead Casagemas," "Casagemas in his Coffin," "The Burial of Casagemas" ("Evocation")], painted in 1901, and the Blue Period classics: "The Blind Beggar," "El Loco" ("The Madman"), "La Vie," and "Tragedy"--painted in 1903.

Location of OriginalArt Institute of Chicago"



"This bent and sightless man holds close to him a large, round guitar. Its brown body represents the painting’s only shift in color. Both physically and symbolically, the instrument fills the space around the solitary figure, who seems oblivious to his blindness and poverty as he plays. At the time the painting was made, literature of the Symbolist movement included blind characters who possessed powers of inner vision. The thin, skeletonlike figure of the blind musician also has roots in art from Picasso’s native country, Spain. The old man’s elongated limbs and cramped, angular posture recall the figures of the great 16th-century artist El Greco.




© 2001 Estate of Pablo Picasso /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, autumn 1910
Oil on canvas
101.1 x 73.3 cm
Gift of Mrs. Gilbert W. Chapman in memory of Charles B. Goodspeed, 1948.561
View enlargement


"Influenced by the breakthroughs of Post-Impressionists such as Paul Cézanne, Picasso no longer sought to imitate nature in his Cubist art. Instead, he invited the viewer to examine the figures and shapes that he broke down and recombined in totally new ways. In this portrait, the subject, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a dealer who championed Picasso’s radical new style, has been fractured into various planes and shapes, and is presented from several points of view. From flickering, partially transparent planes of brown, gray, black, and white emerges his upper torso, hands clasped in his lap."

"The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso, was painted in 1903, just after the suicide death of Picasso's close friend, Casagemas. Picasso's “Blue Period” spanned the years of 1901–1904, and was followed by his “Rose Period”. These periods were both precursors to Cubism, which defined much of Picasso's career.
“The Old Guitarist” depicts a blind man, clad in tattered rags, huddled about his guitar. The figure is reportedly modeled after Senor Sebastian Mazzarella, the blind artist who mentored Picasso in his earlier days in Madrid. The composition may have been influenced by George Frederic Watts's painting Hope.[1]
This work was created in Madrid, and the distorted style (note that the upper torso of the guitarist seems to be reclining, while the bottom half appears to be sitting cross-legged) is reminiscent of the works of El Greco.
[edit]
The image underneath the painting



The face of the woman in the image that The Old Guitarist is painted over
The painting is also notable for the ghostly presence of a mysterious image painted underneath it. It is very likely that Picasso originally started painting a portrait of a woman, who appears to possibly be seated, and in an upset or worried mood. Not much of this image is visible except for her face and legs. This painting is also believed to be influenced by the "Blue period"
[edit]
The Man with the Blue Guitar

Wallace Stevens penned the poem “The Man With the Blue Guitar” after viewing this piece, though in the poem the guitar, rather than the man, becomes blue. The blueness here becomes an image of the transformative power of art, as expressed in the opening lines,
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, “You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.”

The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”

And they said then, “But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.”

Answer 2

Wow! what an answer from johnslat! All I can add is my opinion. I have never seen even a print of this painting, only in books or on the internet. I can feel from (even viewing it from this handicapped point of view) this painting such a sense of brokenness. Over and over and over....Like the guitar is almost playing the guitarist.........

Answer 3

I won't even attempt to outdo Jonslat here. That is an excellent, beautiful answer, and I am blessed by reading it. Wow!

Answer 4

Hey, if you drew your icon, you can do this project easy *that is, if you have to draw* Loving the icon --Lestatluvr13

Answer 5

http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Modern/pages/MOD_1.shtml you will find it right there