5 iconic works of art by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso

Who was Pablo Picasso?

140 years ago, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century was born: Pablo Picasso. The Spanish artist marked the historical panorama by creating, together with George Braque, a pioneering movement, Cubism - a way of representing three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane. ⁠Inspired by African and Iberian art, he also contributed to the emergence of surrealism and expressionism. With more than 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and ceramics, he has become one of the most famous artists. Discover the five outstanding works in the career of the prestigiousPablo Picasso. 

1. Guernica

One of the most famous paintings byPablo Picasso, "Guernica" was created for the Spanish Pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris, in 1937. Upon seeing the dramatic photographs of the German bombing of the city of Guernica, the Spanish artist decided to represent the pain and cruelty of this historic moment. This painting deliberately composed of soft, gray tones testifies and expresses the horror of the Spanish civil war. Its composition is essential for expressing the tragedy of one of the most devastating scenes in modern society. Analyzing the painting in an iconographic way, we realize that there are two groups, the first consisting of three animals: the bull, the wounded horse and the bird, and the second group formed by human beings: a dead soldier and several women. It is noted that both the contextualization of events in Europe and in the artist's private life resulted in the motifs established in “Guernica” itself, one of the most representative works of art of the 20th century.

2. The woman who cries

From 1936 to 1944,Pablo Picasso portrayed in several works the figure of Dora Maar, one of his lovers. In the painting we see this character from the artist's life represented in a harrowing way and full of sadness. These emotions were expressed with the rigid brushstrokes and the loud colors that predominate in the work, each one with its meaning and charge. Orange, the meaning of the danger, aggressiveness and agitation of that historical period; black, death, revealing the spirit of insecurity and horror of war; red, blood and violence; and, finally, dark green, showing the cold, humbleness of the woman's tears.

3. Les demoiselles d'avignon

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon transformed art history by breaking radically with the traditional composition and perspective of painting. The portrayal of these five human figures as geometric shapes on a single two-dimensional plane that expressed the three-dimensional and opened up a new path of possibilities in artistic composition. In “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” the interests of the painter are also denoted, either by the faces of women with Iberian sculptures and African masks, as well as the places he frequented and knew, as Avignon is a reference to a street in Barcelona famous for its brothels .

4. Girl before a Mirror

Between 1931 and 1932,Pablo Picasso created a series of works in which “Girl before a Mirror” inserts. This painting reinvented, in a surprisingly modern way, one of the consecrated themes of art history, the woman in front of the mirror. The softly painted profile of the female figure, in a delicate pink tone, is confronted with a front view strongly constructed with garish colors, yellows and reds. The artist expressed in a fleeting image, the movement of the figure extending his hand to embrace the mirror with his reflection in order to express in his whole being the allusions to youth and old age, sun and moon, light and shadow.

5. Guitar

Pablo Picasso once again abandoned tradition to create this sculpture "Guitar" with a new assembly technique. In 1912, the first version of guitar, later redoing this work in metal. Therefore, the choice of materials denotes the rejection of the traditional, bronze, wood and marble.Pablo Picasso gave a new dynamic by introducing to a smooth surface, the sound of the guitar that is projected by the exhibition space. A work that was involved in a game of substances in space.