Pablo Picasso | OtterKnow Kids Encyclopedia

Who Was Pablo Picasso?

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist who lived from 1881 to 1973 and became one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. He was born in Malaga, Spain, and showed amazing artistic talent from a very young age. His father, who was also an art teacher, began training him in drawing and painting when he was just a child. As a young man, Picasso moved to Paris, France, where he spent most of his adult life creating art. Over the course of his long career, he produced more than 20,000 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and ceramics.

The Blue Period and Rose Period

Early in his career, Picasso went through what art historians call his “Blue Period,” which lasted from about 1901 to 1904. During this time, he painted mostly in shades of blue and blue-green, creating sad and somber images of poor and lonely people. Art experts believe his use of cold colors reflected feelings of sadness after the death of his close friend Carlos Casagemas. After the Blue Period, Picasso’s mood brightened and he entered his “Rose Period,” where he used warmer pinks and oranges to paint circus performers and acrobats. These early periods showed that Picasso could paint in a realistic style before he began experimenting with new ways of seeing the world.

Cubism: A New Way of Seeing

Around 1907, Picasso and his friend Georges Braque invented a completely new style of art called Cubism. Instead of painting objects from just one angle, Cubist paintings show subjects from multiple viewpoints all at the same time, breaking them into geometric shapes. This was a revolutionary idea because artists had been painting things from a single viewpoint for hundreds of years. Cubism changed how people thought about art and inspired many other artists to experiment with new styles. Picasso’s Cubist paintings look like puzzles, with faces and objects broken apart and rearranged in surprising ways.

Guernica and Legacy

One of Picasso’s most powerful paintings is called “Guernica,” which he created in 1937 in response to the bombing of a small Spanish town during the Spanish Civil War. The massive black-and-white painting, which stretches over 25 feet wide, shows the suffering and chaos caused by war. Picasso refused to let the painting return to Spain until democracy was restored in the country. Today, “Guernica” is considered one of the most important anti-war artworks ever made and hangs in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. Picasso’s willingness to try new things and break old rules inspired generations of artists who came after him.