A Look at the Works of a Young Picasso

 We’re going to be hearing a lot about Pablo Picasso this year. Museums in Europe and the United States are curating exhibits to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death.

 

The exhibit at the Guggenheim, Young Picasso in Paris, focuses on the time, in 1900, when the nineteen-year-old Picasso first arrived in Paris from Barcelona. He arrived by train, accompanied by his friend, poet and painter Carles Casagemas.  

 

The friends wanted, not only to experience Paris, but to see a work by Picasso that was being shown at the Spanish Pavilion of that year’s Universal Exhibition.  Picasso and Casagemas spent two months in Paris, soaking up the art and culture. 

 

Picasso painted and Casagemas fell in love. One of the finest paintings that came out of that trip was Le Moulin de la Galette, a painting that depicts a cabaret filled with elegantly dressed men and women enjoying the Parisian nightlife. 

 

At the bottom-center of the painting is a patch of brown, with a bit of red showing through. Researchers were curious about the patch, which didn’t quite fit into the theme of the entire painting. They used an X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer to see beneath the layer of paint, and discovered an image of a small dog under the mass of brown paint. Why Picasso chose to paint over the dog would be pure speculation, though hidden images have been found in some of his other works. 

 

 

The trip to Paris was a great inspiration to the young Picasso, but a tragic one for Casagemas, who could not get over the failed Paris love affair. Picasso went to work for a journal in Madrid, and Casagemas returned to Paris alone. He tried to shoot the woman he loved and then turned the gun on himself and died.

 

The loss of his friend, in such a sad and violent way, led to what was called the Picasso’s Blue Period. He painted two death portraits of Casagemas in 1901 and placed him in the enigmatic La Vie in 1903.

 

Picasso moved to Paris permanently in 1904. There are only ten paintings in the exhibit, but they are ten paintings that clearly reveal the extraordinary talent of a young Picasso.

 

Young Picasso in Paris will be on view at the Guggenheim through August 6, 2023.

 

---

 

May 18, 2023