Review of Pablo Picasso's "The Old Guitarist"

Picasso's " The Old Guitarist" is one of those works of art that doesn't invite you in for pleasantries. It grabs you, slams you against your psyche and demands that you feel it, all of it. "The Old Guitarist" was painted in 1903 after the suicide of Picasso's friend, Carlos Casagemas. This painting and others were part of a period of time called the "Blue Period" in which it is said that the monochromatic blues in his painting represented an intense sadness. It is also a period of time in which his subject matter highlighted the downtrodden and poor. The "Old Guitarist" is a picture of a man, a beggar most likely, sitting on the floor with a guitar in his hand. His clothes are tattered and torn and he is without shoes. His head is down, and we only see his sallow, hollowed cheeks. The mans head seems weighed down by his poverty, by his sadness as though the guitar in the only thing that keeps him upright. The painting is in various shades of blue, symbolizing melancholy. The only other color is a touch of brown in the man's shirt and the guitar. There is an elongation of his features, mainly the length of his face and his limbs that make the man jarring to look. Various art critics highlight the correlation between Picasso and the man, that the alienation he felt in searching for an inspiration outside the shackles of formal schooling made him able to relate to the alienation of the man on the fringes of society. This piece is so powerful because it is precisely that alienation that is relatable to anyone who has felt like an outcast. There is something so provoking about a piece of work that doesn't try sweeten the human experience, that forces you to face someone else's emotion and your own at the same time.