What Is the Pablo Picasso Style of Art?

Pablo Picasso was one of the most prolific and successful artists of the twentieth century. His work encompassed a number of different styles over the seven decades that he spent making art. What these styles have in common is a search for the reality beneath the surface appearance, a willingness to bend or break rules and convention in the service of a personal vision, and an intensive and sometimes brutal manipulation of form and color.

Early Styles

During the early part of the twentieth century, prior to his invention of Cubism, Picasso developed his art in what are now generally called the Blue, Rose, and African periods. The first two of these periods are dominated by melancholy portraits of boys, harlequins, and bereft women. The African period expressed Picasso's discovery of and fascination with the sculpture and designs of Africa. These periods culminated in one of Picasso's most famous works, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

Cubism

Picasso's most celebrated and innovative style was Cubism, which he developed with Georges Braque during the 1920s. Picasso and Braque distorted the dimensions of their subjects as they attempted to portray them from all sides at once. Cubism is characterized by jagged, puzzle-like forms, a muted palette of brown, tan and ochre, and a focus on still-life subjects such as guitars, bottles, and café tables holding small objects.

Classicism

Following Cubism, Picasso painted in a neo-Classical style, in which heavy-set and statuesque women sat motionless, usually on beaches and often with babies and children. The contrast between the radicalism of his Cubist period and the apparent nostalgia and idealization of these works is typical of Picasso's career, in which he appears to be constantly attempting to balance his desire for security and beauty with his need for destruction and revolution.

Surrealism

Although Picasso was never a member of the Surrealist movement, he was a friend of André Breton, who admired his work and his innovation. Picasso's smashing of artistic convention in styles such as Cubism allowed later innovators such as the Surrealist greater freedom in their artistic expressions.

Women

Women were a constant in Picasso's art, sometimes idealized but more often portrayed as threatening, or as deformed and suffering. Picasso worshiped women to the point of feeling threatened by their power over him, and this conflicted attitude is evident in works such as Weeping Woman (1937).

The Minotaur

Picasso's conflict between classical beauty and cruel rebellion was at least partially resolved in his use of the Minotaur, a mythological bull-headed human that he drew and painted obsessively at various points in his career, and appears to have identified with. The strength and menace of the Minotaur's form contrasts with the beauty of the drawings and with the gentle contexts in which he is often portrayed, thus effectively capturing the very real conflicts and paradoxes in the work and life of Picasso.

References

• Artcyclopedia: Pablo Picasso
• "Picasso and the Invention of Cubism", Pepe Karmel, 2003
• "Pablo Picasso, The Blue and Rose Periods", William Slattery Lieberman, 1959

Resources

• Picasso: Exhibitions