The Old Guitarist
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The Old Guitarist is a picture by Pablo Picasso, painted in 1903, just after the suicide death of Picasso's close friend, Casagemas. Picasso's “Blue Period” spanned the years of 1901–1904, and was followed by his “Rose Period”. These periods were both precursors to Cubism, which defined much of Picasso's career.
The Old Guitarist depicts a blind man, clad in tattered rags, huddled about his guitar. The figure is reportedly modeled after Senor Sebastian Mazzarella, the blind artist who mentored Picasso in his earlier days in Madrid. The composition may have been influenced by George Frederic Watts's painting Hope.[1]
This work was created in Madrid, and the distorted style (note that the upper torso of the guitarist seems to be reclining, while the bottom half appears to be sitting cross-legged) is reminiscent of the works of El Greco.
[edit] The image underneath the painting
The painting is also notable for the ghostly presence of a mysterious image painted underneath it. It is very likely that Picasso originally started painting a portrait of a woman, who appears to possibly be seated, and in an upset or worried mood. Not much of this image is visible except for her face and legs. This painting is also believed to be influenced by the "Blue period." The painting is currently located at the Art Institute of Chicago in the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.
[edit] The Man with the Blue Guitar
Wallace Stevens penned the poem “The Man With the Blue Guitar” after viewing this piece, though in the poem the guitar, rather than the man, becomes blue. The blueness here becomes an image of the transformative power of art, as expressed in the opening lines,
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was blue.
They said, “You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.”
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”
And they said then, “But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.”
