'Girl with a Mandolin' - Pablo Picasso
Girl with a Mandolin
Pablo Picasso (1818-1973) Date: 1910 Movement: Cubist Modernism Theme: Abracted Analytic Cubism Technique: Oil on Canvas |
The ‘Girl with a Mandolin’ was painted within the Cubist movement by Pablo Picasso in Paris, 1910. The artwork was one of Picasso’s early Analytic Cubist creations.
Picasso’s ideas lead him to paint the subject as she sat directly in front of him. He analysed his subject, breaking the subject down into squares, cubes, rectangles, and other geometric shapes along the contours of her form. He arranged these shapes to portray various parts of her form that would otherwise be impossible to see from one point of view, this is what defines an Analytic Cubist painting. Picasso's surroundings were highly influential in his work. This led him to paint everyday life in his locality. Unlike conventional western artworks, before impressionism, whom painted historical subjects that posed to create a pyramid of vector lines that lead to a central focal point of the painting, Cubist developed a new approach to representing their subject that allowed them to use abstract geometric shapes to reconstruct the subjective form. Picasso used an almost monochromatic colour palette, dulled and muted forming a unified surface within the work. In orthodox Western artworks, painters would use a wide array of deep colours that were not limited unlike Picasso's work. Traditional paintings would use realistic colours to represent their subjects as realistic forms. Picasso painted the background behind the girl with a random patterns of geometric shapes forming unrecognizable imagery. The background was painted similarly as the subject, it’s unspecific as to what shapes and forms are the subject and what forms are the background. However, it is possible to identify the subject as she is painted in lighter tones compared to the background. Picasso allowed |
the viewer easy identification of the mandolin due to its oval shape and curved lines against the straight lines and geometric forms that accompany the piece.
The Cubism movement revolutionized conventional ideas of painting. It opened the door to new styles and artworks. The geometric forms and sharp edges of these artworks characterize a Cubist painting. Picasso’s and Baroque’s idea was to construct and object rather than represent it that helped form the modernistic art style current today.
The Cubism movement revolutionized conventional ideas of painting. It opened the door to new styles and artworks. The geometric forms and sharp edges of these artworks characterize a Cubist painting. Picasso’s and Baroque’s idea was to construct and object rather than represent it that helped form the modernistic art style current today.