 Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain. He was the
first child of Don Jose Ruiz Blasco, an art teacher, and Maria Picasso
Lopez.
 At an early age Pablo showed an interest in drawing. His first words
were "piz, piz", which is short for "lapiz", the Spanish word for pencil.
 At the age of 7, Pablo began receiving art instruction from his father.
His father believed that an artist's training should include copying the
masters and drawing the human body from plaster casts and live models.
The precision of Pablo's painting technique grew until it soon surpassed
that of his father.
 In 1895, Pablo's father accepted a position at Barcelona's School of
Fine Arts. He asked officials to allow his son to take the entrance
exam. The officials were impressed with Pablo's abilities and
admitted him to the academy.
 As a student he lacked discipline but made friends and continued to
grow as an artist.
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At the age of 16, Pablo's father enrolled him in Spain's most distinguished art school,
Madrid's Royal Academy of San Fernando. However, his instruction at the Royal
Academy lasted only a short time as he struggled to accept formal instruction.
In spite of these difficulties, his time in Madrid was not wasted. Pablo visited
Madrid's museums and saw the paintings of Diego Velasquez and Francisco Goya,
though it was the works of El Greco that he admired most.
In 1900, Picasso made his first trip to Paris. At that time Paris was considered to be
the art capitol of Europe. While in Paris, Picasso's work began to attract the
attention of art collectors.
By 1905, he had become a favorite of American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein.
It was through them that Picasso met French artist Henri Matisse. The two became
lifelong friends
In 1907, Picasso painted one of his most important works - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,
- creating with painter and sculptor Georges Braque the brand new art movement
known as "Cubism".
Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France. He is best remembered as the
co-founder of Cubism, and for Cubist works Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), Three
Musicians (1921) and Guernica (1937). As a young boy, Pablo Picasso was a prodigy
whose skills became an expressive power that profoundly affected the art of the
twentieth century.
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The Blue Period (Spanish: El Periodo Azul) is a term used to define to the
works produced by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso between 1901 and 1904,
when he painted essentially monochromatic paintings in shades of blue and
blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors.
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These somber works, inspired by Spain and painted in Barcelona and Paris,
are now some of his most popular works, although he had difficulty selling
them at the time.
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The blue period is a marvelous expression of poetic subtlety and personal
melancholy and contributes to the transition of Picasso's style from
classicism to abstract art.
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On an emotional note, melancholy and resignation best characterize Picasso's
blue period. When Picasso's close friend Carlos Casagemas commits suicide,
Picasso's trauma finds expression in a series of deeply sentimental paintings
which comprise his blue period.
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The Blue Period work is quite sentimental, but we must keep in mind that
Picasso was still in his late teens, away from home for the first time, and
living in very poor conditions.
 The Rose Period started in 1904, a year in which Picasso alternated
paintings in the "blue style", dark colored (often blue-ish) and
downbeat, with paintings made in his "rose style", which are
somewhat more optimistic in mood and brighter colored (often using
the color pink).
 The Rose Period comes from the time when the style of Pablo
Picasso's painting used cheerful orange and pink colors in contrast
to the cool, somber tones of the previous Blue Period.
 The Rose Period lasted from 1904 to 1906. Picasso was happy in his
relationship with Fernande Olivier whom he had met in 1904 and this
has been suggested as one of the possible reasons he changed his
style of painting.
 Harlequins, circus performers and clowns appear frequently in the
Rose Period and will populate Picasso's paintings at various stages
through the rest of his long career.
 The Rose Period is named after Picasso's heavy use of pink tones in
his works from this period.
 By the middle of the Rose Period, Picasso’s paintings began to sell
and he would never again have to suffer the hardship that he
experienced in the earlier period. This may have been due to the
nature of his works from this period. Although the structure was
essentially the same (the figures still looking melancholy and the
background still very simple), the change in colour, subject and
brushstrokes make the paintings much more appealing.
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Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement pioneered by
Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes,
Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris, that
revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related
movements in music, literature and architecture.
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Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th
century.
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In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted
form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject
from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context
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Cubism began between 1907 and 1911.
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It is important to fully realize the importance of cubism. It isn't just "Picasso's style"
but marks the real beginning of abstract art.
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Speaking of "Picasso's style", it is natural to associate Picasso with Cubism, which leads
to people thinking that paintings such as "Femme en pleurs" are cubist. However,
Picasso's cubist period ended in 1915.
 Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to
the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain
by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish
Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War.
The Spanish Republican government commissioned Picasso to create
a large mural for the Spanish display at the Exposition at the 1937
World's Fair in Paris.
 Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts
upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained
a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the
tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace.
Upon completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief
tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring
the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.