| Artist: | Picasso, Pablo |
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|---|---|---|
| Title of Work: | La Vie (Life) | |
| Date of Work: | 1903 | |
| Nationality: | Spanish | |
| Context: | The Turn of the Century | |
| Movement: | Pic: The Blue Period (1901-1904) | |
| Medium: | Oil | |
| Subject: "La Vie"--life--only it looks like a painting about death or impasse. Inspired by Picasso's close friend's suicide, the death of Casagemas, which happened in 1901 at the start of the Blue Period. Here Picasso poses philosophical questions about the meaning of life, and by implication, the meaning of death. He leaves us with more questions than answers in the end; without a clear cut moral, the image becomes the death of allegory. At center is Casagemas's hand pointing in the void, where nothing and no one points back. The heart of every Blue Period painting is marked by precisely this kind of gap, breach, or rupture that cannot be bridged; modern alienation as a tragic condition. In the background we can make out two images painted on the wall: one of a couple, where the male is comforted by the female, and the other of a figure so curled up in a fetal position that we cannot make out its gender--the universal soul. The mood is one of mystery and melancholy; the blues. Body language turns inward, each figure in his or her own private zip code. No eyes meet. Theme of loss, longing, and loneliness. The picture's inscrutability is precisely its power in the end. Style: predominantly blue palette; color no longer descriptive or naturalistic but chosen instead to set the mood. Blue is an otherworldly color, a cool color that retreats with a haunting, enigmatic sense of mysteries that are unfathomable. Picasso is no longer being faithful to optical reality; this is a "picture from the reverse side of the eye," to quote Munch. An image of inner vision, pointing toward psychological depths rather than surface appearances. No longer interested in deep, perspectival space. He cuts off deep space by signing his name in the upper left corner, right under the threshold that traditionally led back into space; there is no going backwards here. Picasso places us on the threshold of abstraction when he undermines the traditional allegory in this painting that leaves us pointing in the void. Context: Picasso's early Blue Period, colored by his first experience with a friend's death (the suicide of Casagemas). Also expresses a turn of the century anxiety and state of modern alienation. The mystery, anti-naturalism, and deliberate ambiguities of these early works suggest that the Blue Period is Picasso's version of Symbolism. Painting things that cannot be put into words. Picasso's favorite book at this time was Nietzsche's "The Birth of Tragedy." | ||
