Representations of Blindness in Picasso's Blue Period

Home , La Vie (painting), The Old Guitarist

SPECIAL ARTICLE Representations of Blindness in Picasso’s Blue Period

James G. Ravin, MD; Jonathan Perkins, PhD

he Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was the most important artist of the 20th century. It is impossible to consider the development of modern art without him. A unique, highly productive artist who created more than 20000 works in more than 75 years of activity, Picasso was the most frequently exhibited and critiqued artist of the Tlast century. Best known as a painter, he also worked in sculpture, prints, ceramics, and theater design. Blindness was a theme that played an important role in the artist’s first distinctive style, known as the Blue Period. Picasso’s earliest work was done in a natu- and a print from this period have blind- ralistic manner and gives few hints of the ness as a theme. The sad, brooding mood future direction his art would take. While of these works may have been a reaction still a teenager, Picasso made several vis- to the suicide of his close friend and fel- its to Paris, the capital of the artistic world, low artist, Carlos Casagemas (1880- where he exhibited paintings and draw- 1901), which followed a failed romance. ings at the gallery of Ambrose Vollard, who Images of blindness may be traced represented postimpressionists and back to Greek antiquity, where the blind younger members of the French avant- poet Homer is a familiar figure. In Span- garde. The exhibition was a modest finan- ish art and literature, the blind poet evolved cial success and brought him further com- into the blind guitarist. Blind beggars were missions. One art critic saw in this show a common sight on the streets of Spain for the debut of a “brilliant newcomer,” but centuries. Francisco Goya (1746-1828) wrote that “Picasso’s passionate surge for- created several paintings and prints of this wards has not yet left him the leisure to subject. Picasso painted and engraved forge a personal style.”1 During his early works based on the theme of blindness sev- years Picasso developed a strong person- eral times during his Blue Period. Occa- ality and envisioned himself a sort of artist- sionally he returned to images of the blind hero, akin to a Nietzschean superman. He later in his career, such as his depictions had encountered philosophy and art theory from the 1930s of a blind minotaur, an an- a few years earlier but remained a studio cient Greek mythological figure who had artist and never considered abstract think- the head of a bull and the body of a man. ing important to the way he worked. He Pervasive use of blue pigment was not found this type of discussion irrelevant and invented by Picasso, for there is a long his- distracting, and even used the word “blind- tory of working this way. His immediate ing”2 to describe such activity. predecessors in this manner were symbol- In late 1901 his work took a dra- ist painters of Spain and France, who used matic turn when he developed his first dis- blue to emphasize the emotional sensa- tinctive style, the nearly monochromatic tions of sadness and despair. Many works works of the Blue Period (1901-1904). in the Art Nouveau style created toward These works are instantly recognizable by the end of the 19th century also have an their overwhelming use of blue colors and overwhelming blue tone, with one good melancholy figures. Several oil paintings example being Emile Galle’s work in glass entitled Blue Melancholia.3(p216) Through- From the Section of Ophthalmology, Medical College of Ohio, Toledo (Dr Ravin); and out his career Picasso incorporated the the Visual Arts Program, University of Illinois at Springfield (Dr Perkins). methods of other artists into his work. Oth-

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©2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/23/2021 ers have put it more sharply—he stole from everyone, from the old masters to his contemporaries. According to Francoise Gilot, one of his many mis- tresses, Picasso said, “When there’s anything to steal, I steal.”4 The blue works show a particular debt to El Greco which is evident in the elongated hands and faces. He found working in blue highly compatible with his subject matter—the poor, disabled, and downtrodden. Some have suggested the pov- erty-stricken subjects reflect his life- style at the time. Picasso was certainly not as rich then as he was to become later, but he was not greatly different financially from the rest of his artistic and literary circle. He had financial support from home and had exhibited successfully by this time. Some have suggested he used blue primarily because he could only afford cobalt blue paint. This is incor- rect. He could certainly afford to pur- chase whatever paints he wanted. He was still in his youth, testing a tech- nique that proved to be effective for him and that had been explored pre- viously by others.5 Perhaps Picasso identified with the unfortunate individuals he painted. His ambiva- lent comments about Paris are evident in a letter he wrote that same year to his friend, the poet and artist, Max Jacob: Figure l. Pablo Picasso. La Celestine, 1903, Spanish. Oil on canvas, 81.0ϫ60.0 cm. Muse´e Picasso, My dear old Max, I think about the room Paris, France, 2003 Estate of Pablo Picasso. on the boulevard Voltaire and the om- elets, the beans, and the brie and the fried potatoes. But I also think about those riod, and that by depicting “the pros- eated. Although the name of the days of misery and that’s very sad. And pect of what he most feared in life, model for La Celestine (Figure 1) I remember the Spaniards from the rue was not this a way of protecting him- is known, we do not know what de Seine with disgust.6 self against it?”3(p279) The closest Pi- caused her cornea to become casso came to discussing blindness opaque. Her white eye contrasts If Picasso ever told anyone pre- is this cryptic quotation from the mid markedly with the blue that domi- cisely why blindness was impor- 1930s: “There is in fact only love that nates the rest of this painting. She tant to him, we have not been able matters. Whatever it may be. And is the one-eyed procuress de- to find a description. We do know they should put out the eyes of paint- scribed in the drama of the same that his father’s vision was deterio- ers as they do to goldfinches to make name written by Fernando de Ro- rating from an unknown cause at them sing better.”8 Roland Pen- jas (first known edition, 1499) that this time. Inevitably, psychoana- rose, who recorded these words, also is considered second in impor- lytic approaches have been at- wrote “The allegory of the blind man tance in Spanish literature only to tempted. The psychiatrist Carl Jung pursued Picasso throughout life as Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Picasso saw “incipient psychic dissocia- though reproaching him for his knew Rojas’s story from his adoles- tion” and even schizophrenia in Pi- unique gift of vision.”9 These quo- cent years, if not earlier.3(p288) casso’s paintings.7 Blindness is a most tations give a hint that Picasso was The cause of the atrophic orbit serious problem for a painter. In a confronting and naming his fears but of The Old Guitarist (Figure 2) recent, highly acclaimed biography do not clarify the meaning of his por- also remains obscure. Picasso of Picasso, Richardson noted that Pi- traits of the blind. engulfed the region of the eye in a casso was at home in Barcelona with Picasso’s depictions of the blind dark blue shadow in his paintings his parents when he painted some are too stylized for us to diagnose of the blind, a characteristic that of the blind figures from his Blue Pe- precisely the diseases being delin- can be considered an archetypical

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©2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/23/2021 stylistic feature of the Blue Period. a blind man at a table. He holds make the viewer feel sorry for them. Similarly, we cannot identify a some bread in his left hand and Picasso found an intensity of other cause for the poor vision of the fig- gropes with his right for a jug of senses in his depiction of the blind. ure in The Blind Man’s Meal wine.”10 This is one of his few In The Old Guitarist and The Blind (Figure 3). Picasso described remarks about works made at the Man’s Meal different senses appear what he was creating in this work time, but reveals nothing. to be enhanced as compared with the succinctly in a letter: “I am painting Picasso did not depict figures lack of sight. The fact that the fig- in great detail, but tended to ideal- ures are blind might, in and of it- ize them in these Blue Period self, indicate that other senses are works. He took the elongated more acute, but Picasso empha- arms, hands, torsos, and heads of sized other senses by elongating El Greco and placed them in an forms and was influenced by El early 20th century setting. Some Greco. In particular, the long, thin critics have seen a “spiritual inner hands of the figures in both these vision” in the blind figures Picasso works are fundamental to an en- created in this way.11 The figures hancement of the senses because are isolated and do not interact they are direct actors in creating mu- well. Other observers have felt this sic in the case of The Old Guitarist, is a reflection of Picasso’s own iso- and in touching the food in The Blind lation at that time.12 Despite nearly Man’s Meal. Picasso explored the a century of critical comment on “power” of blindness in La Celes- these works, the full meaning is tine. By depicting an eye with an still unclear. The artist himself did opaque cornea next to an appar- not offer any help in deciphering ently normal eye, Picasso juxta- them. When asked, he responded posed vision and blindness. Para- dismissively, terming the Blue and doxically, it is the blind eye that Rose Period works as pure senti- draws the gaze of the viewer. The fact ment.4 that the opaque cornea blocks vi- Figure 2. Pablo Picasso. The Old Guitarist, 1903/1904, Spanish. Oil on panel. 122.9ϫ82.6 But we would argue that the sion is the very element that at- cm. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill, blind characters in the Blue Period tracts vision on the part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection. paintings were not created simply to viewer. The style of the Blue Period may be thought of as a kind of meditation on blindness, or at least impaired vision. In these works the artist explores the expressive possi- bilities of a radical reduction of color. Picasso surrounded the envi- ronment with a dark blue veil and used flat, simplified backgrounds that threaten to disappear alto- gether. An obscuring of traditional vision is the fundamental expressive component of these works. In investigating blindness Picasso chose a style that deemphasizes objective sight in favor of a deeper vision. The figures are recognizable as people, which is more than can be said for some paintings from his Cubist period. The fractured cubist portraits, which depict individuals from a multitude of directions, con- fuse many museum goers. The pub- lic is interested in the Blue Period paintings from his youth because of what he created later. Early Picasso is not as pleasurable to view as Im- pressionism, to cite just one ex- Figure 3. Pablo Picasso, The Blind Man’s Meal, 1903, Spanish. Oil on canvas. 95.3ϫ94.6 cm. The ample. Some of the reverence for Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Mr and Mrs Ira Haupt Gift, 1950. these works comes from the fact that

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©2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/23/2021 experts say they should be seen, en- to express and the means to express that Corresponding author and re- joyed, and respected for what Pi- idea.13 prints: James G. Ravin, MD, 3000 Re- casso was to become, the epitome of These statements reaffirm the com- gency Ct, Toledo, OH 43623 (e-mail: modernism. The most important art mon observation that an artist is in- [email protected]). may be difficult to understand, even herently biased when it comes to disturbing, while art that is super- evaluating and interpreting his own REFERENCES ficially appealing may be overly sac- work. Picasso actually admitted as charine, lack any meaning after the much in saying, “The connoisseur 1. McQuillan M. Picasso. Dictionary of Art. Vol 24. first glance, and remain totally un- of painting gives only bad advice to important. London, England: Macmillan Publishing Co Inc; the painter. For that reason I have 1996:727. Picasso made evaluating his given up trying to judge myself.”14 2. Chipp HB. Theories of Modern Art. Berkeley: Uni- work difficult. He treated with scorn Picasso’s colors and subject mat- versity of California Press; 1973:265. attempts at analysis and said he just 3. Richardson J. A Life of Picasso. Vol 1. New York, ter brightened by the end of 1904 as NY: Random House Inc; 1991. painted what he saw, the things that he entered the next major phase of moved him: 4. Cowing E. Picasso: Style and Meaning. London, his art, the Rose Period (1905-1906). England: Phaidon Press; 2002:5. 5. Kimmelman M. First steps on the journey from When I paint, my object is to show what The change to warmer colors and more pleasant themes is linked to the prodigy to Picasso. New York Times. April 11, I have found and not what I am looking 1997:B1, B22. for....Whatonedoes is what counts happiness he shared with his first 6. McCully M, ed. A Picasso Anthology: Docu- and not what one had the intention of long-term liaison, Fernande Ol- ments, Criticism, Reminiscences. London, En- doing....There are no concrete or ab- ivier. The works of the Blue and Rose gland: Thames & Hudson Ltd; 1981:41. stract forms but only forms which are Periods have certainly achieved criti- 7. Farrier JL. Picasso. Paris, France: Editions Pierre more or less convincing lies.13 cal acceptance, but if Picasso had Terrail; 1996:45. 8. Penrose R. Picasso: His Life and Work. New York, stopped painting at this point, he He denied any evolution in his style NY: Harper; 1958:91. would be remembered as a second- 9. Penrose R. Picasso, perception, and blindness. even if others separated his work into or third-rank artist who had not Museum (Paris). 1981;33:193. radically different phases: “When- reached full artistic maturity. The 10. Boggs JS. Picasso & Things. Cleveland, Ohio: ever I had something to say, I have Cleveland Museum of Art; 1992:41. next phases of his career, particu- 11. Picasso, the Early Years 1892-1906 [exhibition said it in a manner in which I have larly cubism (1906-1915) brought Pi- felt it ought to have been said...” brochure, unpaginated]. Washington, DC: Na- casso fame on the international level tional Gallery; 1997. since and made him the single most im- 12. Janson AF: History of Art. 5th ed. New York, NY: portant figure in 20th century art. Harry N Abrams Inc; 1995:744. different motives inevitably require dif- 13. Francis HS. Picasso’s “La Vie.” Cleveland Mu- ferent methods of expression. This does seum Art Bull. 1945;32:93. not imply either evolution or progress, Accepted for publication October 14, 14. Peter LJ. Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time. but an adaptation of the idea one wants 2003. New York, NY: Bantam Books; 1980:377.

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