The Old Guitarist

The Old Guitarist is an oil painting by Pablo Picasso, which he created in late 1903 and early
1904. It depicts an elderly musician, a haggard man with threadbare clothing, who is hunched
over his guitar while playing in the streets of Barcelona, Spain. It is on display at the Art Institute
of Chicago as part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.[1]
 The Old Guitarist

Artist Pablo Picasso

Year 1903–04

Medium Oil on panel

Movement Picasso's Blue Period, Expressionism

Dimensions 122.9 cm × 82.6 cm (48.4 in × 32.5 in)

Location Art Institute of Chicago

At the time of The Old Guitarist's creation, Modernism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and
Symbolism had greatly influenced Picasso's style. Furthermore, El Greco, Picasso's poor
standard of living, and the suicide of a dear friend influenced Picasso's style at the time which
came to be known as his Blue Period.[1] Several x-rays, infrared images and examinations by
curators revealed three different figures hidden behind the old guitarist.

Background
At the time, having renounced his classical and traditional education and searching for fame,
Picasso and his friend Carlos Casagemas moved to Paris. A year later, Casagemas became
hopelessly miserable from a failed love affair and committed suicide. Picasso was greatly
afflicted by this event and was soon depressed and desolate. In addition, Picasso was very poor.
His poverty made him identify and relate to beggars, prostitutes and other downtrodden
outcasts in society.[1]

These events and circumstances were the impetus for the beginning of Picasso's Blue Period
which lasted from 1901 to 1904. The Blue Period is identified by the flat expanses of blues,
greys and blacks, melancholy figures lost in contemplation, and a deep and significant tragedy.
After the Blue Period came Picasso's Rose Period, and eventually the Cubism movement which
Picasso co-founded.[1]

Analysis

Elements in The Old Guitarist were carefully chosen to generate a reaction from the spectator.
For example, the monochromatic color scheme creates flat, two-dimensional forms that
dissociate the guitarist from time and place. In addition, the overall muted blue palette creates a
general tone of melancholy and accentuates the tragic and sorrowful theme. The sole use of oil
on panel causes a darker and more theatrical mood. Oil tends to blend the colors together
without diminishing brightness, creating an even more cohesive dramatic composition.[2]

Furthermore, the guitarist, although muscular, shows little sign of life and appears to be close to
death, implying little comfort in the world and accentuating the misery of his situation. Details
are eliminated and scale is manipulated to create elongated and elegant proportions while
intensifying the silent contemplation of the guitarist and a sense of spirituality. The large, brown
guitar is the only significant shift in color found in the painting;[1] its dull brown, prominent
against the blue background, becomes the center and focus. The guitar comes to represent the
guitarist's world and only hope for survival. This blind and poor subject depends on his guitar
and the small income he can earn from his music for survival. Some art historians believe this
painting expresses the solitary life of an artist and the natural struggles that come with the
career. Therefore, music, or art, becomes a burden and an alienating force that isolates artists
from the world.[3] And yet, despite the isolation, the guitarist (artist) depends on the rest of
society for survival. All of these emotions reflect Picasso's predicament at the time and his
criticism of the state of society. The Old Guitarist becomes an allegory of human existence.[1]
Paul Mariani, a biographer of Wallace Stevens, presented his analysis of the painting as a
counterpoint to objections raised by Stevens concerning the origin of his 1937 poem titled The
Man With the Blue Guitar stating,

"Despite his repeatedly den ying it, Stevens does seem to have a
particular painting in mind here: Picasso's 1903 The Old Guitarist , which
portrays an old man with white hair and beard sitting distor ted and
cross-legged as he pla ys his guitar. If Picasso attempted to portr ay the
world of poverty and abject misery , it was because that had been his
own plight as a struggling young artist in Barcelona, where he painted
many pictures including this o ne, of the poor. The painting is almost
entirely done in monochromatic blues and blue-blacks, except for the
guitar itself, which is painted in a slightly warmer brown. The man is
blind but, no longer seeing the world around him, he sees more deeply
into the reality within." [4]

In The Old Guitarist, Picasso may have drawn upon George Frederic Watts's 1886 painting of
Hope, which similarly depicts a hunched, helpless musician with a distorted angular form and
predominantly blue tone.[5]

Infrared discoveries

Detail showing an image beneath

Recent x-rays and examinations by curators found three figures peering behind the old guitarist's
body. The three figures are an old woman with her head bent forward, a young mother with a
small child kneeling by her side, and an animal on the right side of the canvas. Despite unclear
imagery in crucial areas of the canvas, experts determined that at least two different paintings
are found beneath The Old Guitarist.

In 1998, researchers used an infrared camera to penetrate the uppermost layer of paint (the
composition of The Old Guitarist) and clearly saw the second-most composition. By using this
camera, researchers were able to discover a young mother seated in the center of the
composition, reaching out with her left arm to her kneeling child at her right, and a calf or sheep
on the mother's left side. Clearly defined, the young woman has long, flowing dark hair and a
thoughtful expression.[6]

The Art Institute of Chicago shared its infrared images with the Cleveland Museum of Art and
the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where curator William Robinson identified a
sketch by Picasso sent to his friend Max Jacob in a letter. It revealed the same composition of
mother and child, but it had a cow licking the head of a small calf. In a letter to Jacob, Picasso
reveals he was painting this composition a few months before he began The Old Guitarist.
Despite these discoveries, the reason Picasso did not complete the composition with a mother
and child, and how the older woman fitted into the history of the canvas, remain unknown.[6]

In 2019, researchers at University College London used neural network to recreate the painting
found by infrared camera. The neural network was trained to recreate the painting from other
works of Picasso during his Blue Period. [7]

In popular culture

As one of Picasso's more notable Blue Period works, The Old Guitarist has influenced other
artists of all backgrounds. For example, Paul McCartney drew from the painting when creating a
chord progression. This progression and McCartney's accompanying melody were his
contributions to the 2015 Kanye West song "All Day".[8]

See also

The Man With the Blue Guitar, 1937 Wallace Stevens poem

The Blue Room

Femme aux Bras Croisés

List of Picasso artworks 1901–1910

Notes

1. "The Old Guitarist"(https://www.artic.edu/artworks/28067/the-old-guitarist) . The Art Institute of

Chicago. Retrieved 2018-12-07.

2. "Essay --" (https://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=46491) . www.123helpme.com. Retrieved

2018-12-07.

3. Blue Period Music: The Old Guitarist (http://blogs.princeton.edu/writingart8/archives/2004/12/the_blue_pe

riod.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20110720030643/http://blogs.princeton.edu/writingart
8/archives/2004/12/the_blue_period.html) 2011-07-20 at theWayback Machine

4. Paul Mariani. Biography of Wallace Stevens. Page 226.

5. Barlow, Paul (2004). "Where there's life there's" (http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/where-th

eres-life-theres) . Tate. Retrieved 12 March 2010.

6. "Examination Techniques" (https://web.archive.org/web/20081012051244/http://www.artic.edu/aic/conse

rvation/revealingpicasso/exam_xray.html) . The Art Institute of Chicago. Archived from the original (htt
p://www.artic.edu/aic/conservation/revealingpicasso/exam_xray.html) on 2008-10-12. Retrieved
2020-07-18.

7. Anthony Bourached, George Cann "Raiders of the Lost Art" (https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.05677) , arXiv,
2019

8. "Kanye West Reminds Paul McCartney of Andy Warhol, and Other Gems From the 'Rolling Stone' Interview"
(https://news.artnet.com/art-world/kanye-west-paul-mccartney-andy-warhol-603908) . Artnet News. 12
August 2016. Retrieved 26 December 2020.

Sources

"Pablo Picasso's works, featuring: The Old Guitarist (http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=

46491) ". 09 Mar 2011

Rimer, Bonnie. The Old Guitarist Meets New Technology (https://web.archive.org/web/200712

18122251/http://www.clevelandart.org/exhibcef/picassoas/html/7327426.html) . Rep. The
Art Institute of Chicago, 2001. Web. 25 Feb. 2011

"Picasso's Musical Instruments: Blue Period Music: The Old Guitarist." Princeton University
Blog Service (https://web.archive.org/web/20110720030643/http://blogs.princeton.edu/writin
gart8/archives/2004/12/the_blue_period.html) . Web. 10 Mar. 2011
 "Pablo Ruiz Picasso Painting The Old Guitarist - TheArtistPabloPicasso.com (http://www.thear
tistpablopicasso.com/pablo-picasso-painting-old-guitarist.htm) ." The Artist Pablo Picasso
Art and Biography - Theartistpablopicasso.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011

"Symbolism." SJSU Digital Art Lobby (https://web.archive.org/web/20110507151733/http://ga

llery.sjsu.edu/paris/symbolism/introduction.html) . Web. 10 Mar. 2011

External links

Picasso's Blue Period (https://web.archive.org/web/20110623183159/http://www.people.vcu.

edu/~djbromle/modern04/paulh/index.htm)

The Art Institute of Chicago: Revealing Picasso Conservation Project (https://web.archive.org/

web/20071210203401/http://www.artic.edu/aic/conservation/revealingpicasso/)

Biography of Pablo Picasso (http://www.notablebiographies.com/Pe-Pu/Picasso-Pablo.html)

The Old Guitarist, Art-Historical Research, Art Institute of Chicago (http://www.artic.edu/collec

tions/conservation/revealing-picasso-conservation-project/art-historical-research)

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