Picasso

Pablo Picasso is probably the most important figure of 20th century, in terms of art, and art movements that occurred over this period. To say that Pablo Picasso conquered western art is, by today, the merest usual place. Before the age of 50, the Spanish born artist had become the most well known name in modern art, with the most distinct style and eye for artistic creation. There had been no other artists, prior to Picasso, who had such an impact on the art world, or had a mass following of fans and critics alike, as he did.

Although his art career spanned over a 7 decade period, Pablo Picasso is most known for his introduction of cubism, and modern approach to painting, which set forth the movements to follow in to the twentieth century. Not only was his art form well ahead of his time, but the works he created went on to influence artists and painters down the line, for a period of more than 50 years, and still influences the styles of many artists today.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was Picasso's first masterpiece which introduced the cubism form to the world. The painting depicts five naked women with figures composed of flat, splintered planes and faces inspired by Iberian sculpture and African masks. The compressed space the figures inhabit appears to project forward in jagged shards; a fiercely pointed slice of melon in the still life of fruit at the bottom of the composition teeters on an impossibly upturned tabletop. In this painting, Picasso makes a radical departure from traditional European painting by adaptation of Primitivism and abandonment of perspective in favor of a flat, two-dimensional picture plane,

When Les Demoiselles d'Avignon first appeared, it was as if the art world had collapsed. Known form and representation were completely abandoned. Hence it was called the most innovative painting in modern art history. With the new strategies applied in the painting, Picasso suddenly found freedom of expression away from current and classical French influences and was able to carve his own path.

Cubism becomes a form that was no longer intended to depict reality. Picasso and other Cubist painters rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modeling, and foreshortening. They wanted instead to emphasize the two-dimensionality of the canvas. So they reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms, and then realigned these within a shallow, relieflike space. In this way, Pablo Picasso truly transcended the art world, the way in which art came to be, and future works created by other artists that followed him.

Cubism, especially the second form, known as Synthetic Cubism, played a great role in the development of western art world. With his use of color, shape and geometrical figures, and his unique approach to depict images, Picasso changed the direction of art for generations to come.

Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." - Pablo Picasso

Another aspect of his works that differentiated Pablo Picasso from other artists of his time was the fact that his works depicted his personal feeling, as well as the outside world. He wasn't afraid to push boundaries of the human mind. In 1937, following the Nazi Germany's bombing in Guernica, the artist created his most famous work Guernica. The work is considered as the most powerful anti-war statement of modern art. It was done to showcase Picasso's support towards ending war, and a condemnation on fascism in general. From the beginning, Picasso chooses not to represent the horror of Guernica in realist or romantic terms. Key figures - a woman with outstretched arms, a bull, an agonized horse - are refined in sketch after sketch, then transferred to the capacious canvas, which he also reworks several times. Dark color and monochrome theme were used to depict the trying times, and the anguish which was being suffered. Guernica challenges the notions of warfare as heroic and exposes it as a brutal act of self-destruction. The works was not only a practical report or painting but also