Aneesa Rustam
Professor Gerspacher
Art 10000
8, December 2021
Pablo Picasso’s Interesting Love Life
A highly prominent individual whose made a name for himself in the world of art is none other than Spanish artist and composer Pablo Picasso. His creative talent stretched far beyond his well renowned paintings enough to be considered an artistic mastermind through his sculptures, writing, and other original works. Picasso gained the inspiration for his highly notable art pieces throughout his life experiences. For instance, his most famous creation to date being the anti-war painting “Guernica,” and during his times of suffering though the sorrowful picture of, “The Old Guitarist,” were created to express certain moments he has lived through. However, if one were to take a look at all of Picasso’s paintings, they’d notice a repetitive factor, the numerous paintings of women. According to Picasso’s past, it’s believed that he has had a tainted history with many women. Based on the amount of paintings he’s created, it’s safe to say that Picasso’s infamous love life was the most influential aspect towards his artwork.
From his birth on October 25th, 1881 to his death on April 8th 1973, Picasso was said to have been with multiple women, even during both of his marriages. Born and raised in the city of Málaga on the Southern coast of Spain, Picasso took after his father, a Spanish art teacher and began creating numerous drawings of bullfights.His father took notice that Picasso’s talent was astounding which prompted him to urge his son to become a famous classical painter. Picasso however, understood the gift behind his talent and decided to create paintings that were raw and showcased the struggles in life. Just as his passion for art flourished at a young age so much that he was able to draw before talking, his love life began as well. He became fascinated with the concept of somatic love after being exposed to sex and prostitution enough to stray from the typical classical like paintings of Spain, to create more explicit pieces. As if a drug, Picasso’s intrigue into his sexuality grew greater; so much so that his relationships with the multiple women that he encountered started to become the focal point and influence behind his most famous creations.
Moving to Paris after exploring his newly found relationship with physical love was quite challenging for Picasso and the friends that went along with him. The death of his painter friend who killed himself due to his violent relationship with a woman he was in love with, shortly crept up on Picasso and led to a shift in his artwork. A common aspect which appeared in his pieces that followed this death is the color blue, a color that usually represents sadness and despair. His friends relationship with his lover inspired Picasso’s well recognizable painting of his, “blue era,” made after his friend’s death which illustrates the hardships of his friend and the woman he loved. Soon after the blue era resigned, the rose era began which presented a happier, lively time in Picasso’s life. This shift in Picasso’s art occurred with the use of bountiful varieties of bright colors, but another key inspiration behind this era was his relationship with Fernande Olivier. Olivier can be seen as a pivotal factor in the Rose era in large part due to the personal and romantic joy that was masterfully illustrated in many of his artistic crafts. Entering art galleries with pieces that were often inspired by her, raised him to fame just as quickly as he started to forget about her. Soon, Picasso would start a relationship with another woman, ending his previous one that Olivier would recall as difficult and violent.
Picasso began his relationship with a woman he referred to as Eva, to which he then went on to develop a new style of art; Cubism, the decomposition of realistic paintings in geometric shapes. Eva’s presence in Picasso’s life led to the creation of some of his most famous works during his Cubism period like, “Ma Jolie” and “Woman with a Guitar.” Unfortunately, Picasso faced another death when Eva’s life was cut short due to cancer even after thoughts of marriage arose. Fortunately, her death didn’t lead him into another blue era and decided to continue his cubism art that his relationship ultimately inspired. Once World War 1 came around, Picasso’s art style began to decline and he returned to pursuing realistic and classical like paintings, being a prominent style in the 1920s. We owe this sudden change in art to the multiple artists and their works for this period, as well as a woman named Olga Khokhlova. Olga, a ballet dancer at the time, moved to Paris with Picasso and eventually got married and had their first son. Olga allowed for Picasso to experiment with this classical style of art that he originally strayed from and can be seen in his portrait of her titled, “Olga in an Armchair.” It’s easy to say that his experience with different styles and techniques were often stimulated by the woman in his life.
While it all sounds like a rather peaceful time for Picasso and his new family, he and his wife were never on the same page. Their “relationship” led Picasso to having an eight year long affair with a young girl named Marie- Thérèse Walter who bore his second child. He includes Marie in over one hundred of his works within this classical art style period which were often inspired by her nature and silhouette. Paintings such as, “Le Rêve” is known to be a well familiar piece of art moved by Marie which includes that erotic like feel that Picasso was all to familiar with. Marie provided him and his art with great satisfaction and became more conspicuous within his work in the 1930s; however, she ranked lower than him intellectually. This led him to pursue another love interest by the name of Dora Maar that provided him with the abilities Marie didn’t possess therefore, resulting in another shift. Compared to the bright colored portraits he made of Marie, Picasso’s paintings inspired by Dora acquired a darker feel. Perhaps Maar and Picasso held conversations and exchanged thoughts that they both felt strongly passionate about and led for the creation of raw pieces. One of them being another famous painting titled, “The Weeping Woman,” but once World War 2 started to approach, his paintings of her became more uncomfortably abstract. A pattern that becomes repetitive throughout Picasso’s relationship is how often he grows tired of them and as expected, he began another ten year relationship with a student named Françoise Gilot who went on to birth two of his children. During his relationship with Gilot, Picasso rose to a high level of attraction and fame but in exchange went on to expose his abusive tendencies, another repetitive pattern. He recalls Gilot as the only woman to ever leave him and grew unsettled with this fact so what better way to express his rage than to warn art dealers to not consume the art made around her. Although Picasso sought to take revenge on his past lover, he already married another woman.
Jacqueline Rogue shared a similar sense of art as she worked in a pottery studio that Picasso often utilized for his pieces. Rogue becomes the last and number one woman featured in all of his paintings of women within his cubism period. “Jacqueline with Flowers,” is a notable portrait of Rogue that Picasso greatly captures of her figure and prominent features. After being married for eleven years, Picasso passed away in the year of 1973. Unlike the other woman he’s been with, it appears that Rogue never had any bad blood with Picasso and killed herself not too long after his death due to grief. As mentioned before, Picasso’s interesting relationship with love becomes apparent when he finds interest in an altercation between two of his past lovers or even when he tricks one of them into divorcing their current husband after being the first woman to walk about in his life. There’s no doubt that the woman Picasso has shared his life with, influenced some of the most famous pieces of the art world today.
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