Picasso Mother and Child

Pablo Picasso Mother and Child, 1901

Vocab words: Monochromatic, Blue Period

Blue Period

In Picasso’s “Blue Period” (1901-1904), his blue paintings portray destitute human beings. Blue was chosen deliberately — deep and cold, signifying misery and despair — to intensify the hopelessness of the figures depicted, such as beggars, prostitutes, the blind, out-of-work actors and circus folk, as well as Picasso himself and his penniless friends. At the time, Picasso even wore blue clothes. The “Blue Period” dramatizes the artist as an outcast from society. Indeed, in Paris at that time, far from family and home, Picasso is unrecognized, unappreciated and in extreme poverty.