Man with Guitar
Pablo Picasso
1913
Museum of Modern Art, NY
Building on his adoption of the rhythm and freedom of the sardana to create his first Cubist guitar paintings, Picasso continued to develop Cubism by visual translation of the Catalan music’s color and energy. Despite its technicalities, the sardana’s freedom catalyzed a music that was designed to elicit fun. The Catalan culture embraced the sardana because of its free and convivial qualities. The dance was open to all ages and meant to promote enjoyment (Pérez 40). We see this Catalan excitement (see De Séverac’s Influence) become incorporated into Picasso’s second Man with Guitar (1913), resoundingly colorful and energized in contrast to not only The Old Guitarist but also his 1911 Man with Guitar. Painted during Picasso’s third summer in Céret, the painting again has its foundation in the geometry, stemming from the sardana’s rhythm. Picasso positioned rectangles to form the man’s body and the neck of the guitar. Crescents and ovals form the man’s face, hat brim, and the guitar’s body. As seen in his first Man with Guitar, Picasso built off this structure by disregarding boundaries for the objects, paralleling the continual improvisation in the sardana. The man and the guitar blend into each other, perhaps Picasso’s illustration of music’s ability to capture and influence a person – just as the Catalan music did to Picasso. However, this painting differs from Picasso’s early Céret guitar paintings in the wide spectrum of bright colors that Picasso chose. The colors create vibrancy, and here Picasso finally escaped the dreariness in color that carried over from his Blue Period. As the blue created a dispirited mood in The Old Guitarist, the lively and varying colors in this new Man with Guitar convey an upbeat mood that resembles the enjoyment promoted by the sardana. It can be argued that the liveliness of the Catalan music inspired Picasso to flourish Cubism with colors and more distinction, creating a brighter and less monotonous work.