The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso

       

 "The Old Guitarist" with size 122.9cm x 82.6cm is an oil painting artwork, which painted by Pablo Picasso in 1903. As the picture show above, this painting is showing a man with threadbare clothing, strength less holding his brown color guitar, playing music on the streets of Barcelona. This painting is currently display in Art Institute of Chicago.

"The Old Guitarist" is using monochromatic color scheme with blue, black, grey and brown color. Overall from the paint, we can see that 80% of it was painted with blue color and it's saying that during that time, Pablo Picasso is suffering in his Blue Period due to the death of his dear friend, Carlos Casagemas.

Based on my research on psychology, the color of blue can explain positively by perseverance, devotion, peaceful and calm. Picasso perseveres in his art although he was with a poor standard of living in Paris. He loves his friend, the guitarist who was hopelessly miserable from a failed love affair and committed suicide. Picasso also looks for peace and calm during this horrible moment.

On the other hand, the color of blue can also be explain negatively by emotionally unstable, unforgiving and manipulation. Picasso lost his dear friend, caused emotionally unstable, even showing out the sense of unforgiving towards the death. He was then facing manipulation which lasted from 1901 to 1904. The combination of blue, black, grey and brown melancholy figures lost in contemplation, a deep and significant tragedy.

            In 1998, researchers found out that there ia another composition shown in the paint through x-ray. They determine a young mother, a child and a calf. Nowadays, researchers still could not find out the reason why Picasso didn't finish his previous artwork before he paint "The Old Guitarist".

In my opinion, "The Old Guitarist" shows a sense of sadness, depression and loneliness. When I'm finding a painting of Pablo Picasso in order to write a journal for my visual communication assignment, this painting attract me the most with its color, emotion of guitarist and also the brown guitar. The blue color of the painting make me curious about the background of this picture. The title of this painting bring my attention to this painting. Furthermore, after finish my research about this painting, I found out that the story of this painting is meaningful due to a memorize of a dear friend by Pablo Picasso. It's one of the best way for artist to memorize their life and even what had happened around them. Painting is not only an art, but also a sense of memories.