Picasso began abstraction by fragmenting his images according to how he felt about them. His pictures would evolve as his thoughts changed, giving a more primitive result. This led to the movement of cubism. Picasso’s pictures became more geometric in their emphasis on angle and fragmented two dimensional space. Palettes became more monochromatic, as well. He derived this from Cezanne, who emphasized relying on the cylinder, the cube and the sphere to make paintings.

Another painter in Picasso’s company was Georges Braque. The two worked together a great deal, even spending one summer painting together. They took cubism further by adding numbers and letters to the pictorial space. These remained “flat” paintings with the emphasis on the shallow surface of the painting, leaving perspective behind as a concern. The creation of cubism progressed very quickly and painters from other countries began using this new vision also, among them Fernand Leger, and Juan Gris.

Leger was a frenchman and he was very intelligent and produced not only paintings but written feelings about the new work. He likened abstract painting to freedom that is enjoyed by saints and heroes. Juan Gris was a Spaniard and he came to Paris, penniless in 1906. He worked as a cartoonist to purchase the bare minimums of life. He worked with planes and textures and his paintings had great visual interest.

Taking his own vision of the cubist movement was Marcel Duchamp. He became a group of painters that became known as futurists. They were interested in industrialization, the new military might being wielded in the world. There is a lot of movement in the futurists’ work and the colors tend to be metal-like and monochromatic. Another futurist who had a great deal of interest in movement in his work was Umberto Boccioni. His sculptures were human-like but also had abstracted forms moving about the basic form. His sculpture: Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is considered the height of futurism.

About this time, art began knowing no borders, and Paris was no longer the only center for work. Other European countries began their own artists cultures, including Russia,

By his early 20’s Picasso changed his earth-toned colors to a palate which conveyed his inner emotions. Picasso’s blue period was a depressing phase of his life triggered by the suicide of his close friend, Casagemas. “The Old Guitarist”, “The Tragedy” and “La Vie” were a few of these poetic images which were created, predominately with shades of blue. Most of the people featured in this short lived chapter were sickly and emaciated, appearing to feel the same discouraging emotions which Picasso was at the time.

The rose period, falling into sequence around 1905, showed the lightening of Picasso’s outlook on life through his beige and rose colored tones. The “Family of Saltimbanque” and “Acrobat and Young Harlequin” are two pieces in the rose period in which Picasso features clowns and circus performers for the first time. Picasso’s financial improvements and successful loving relationship played a large part in the pink and attractive skin tones on the people featured in his work.

By 1907, Pablo Picasso and his friend Georges Braque collaborated to begin the era which we know as cubism. Once again, Picasso wanted a new form of expression and created a radically inventive form of art using bright colors, hard edged forms, and flattened spaces displayed in geometric terms. Picasso’s “Self Portrait” is an example of an artwork done in the beginning of cubism and is a good representation of what other pieces were like during that period.

Cubism then progressed into “Analytical Cubism” and then “Synthetic Cubism.” Analytical cubism involved removing bright colors from Picasso and Braque’s paintings so the primary focus is on the structure, opposed to the distracting paint shades. The idea of not being limited by viewpoints was applied to this period. Therefore Picasso and Braque began developing pictures which incorporated an object being viewed from several different viewpoints or angles. Synthetic cubism consisted of larger and more representational forms along with flat and bright patterns. Throughout the synthetic period Picasso and Braque would experiment sporadically by incorporating real inanimate objects, such as actual pieces of oilcloths, newspaper print, or postage stamps onto the canvas.

During the 1930s Picasso was admired as a distinguished artist and was lucky enough to achieve success during his lifetime. His paintings were now militant and political, especially due to the fact of World War I and the Spanish civil war. He also became connected to the Surrealist movement, but refused to study this type of art in any formal institutions.

Following World War II, Picasso’s paintings made a switch from political to gentle. Picasso spent the last years of his life concentrating on drawing, and ended up finishing 347 sketches. In spite of health complications Picasso created a number of paintings in his final years. He died on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91.