Picasso and "Three Musicians"
Picasso was at the height of his creativity and at the height of his fame in the 1920s. At the time, Picasso was vacationing in a villa in Fontainebleau, which is southeast of Paris.
The Creation of "Three Musicians"
One of the most famous paintings from that era is called "Three Musicians." It comes in two different forms. They both came into being during the summer of 1921. The variant with the dog is the most intriguing. This is a good illustration of the revival of synthetic cubism. With this piece, Picasso encapsulated a wide range of commedia dell'arte personalities. He began to handle his characters in an increasingly abstract manner, and in this work, he clearly hit his breaking point.
Symbolism and Friendship
A composition of three figures drawn in a strict synthetic cubism technique is considered a kind of a feat, which Picasso never even tried to accomplish before. Two of Picasso's greatest friends are immortalized on this painting. There are three images, three characters, three parts of a single creative organism. Guillaume Apollinaire, a poet and a critic, who died of the Spanish flu in 1918, is represented in the image of lyrical and pensive Pierrot (some art critics believe that this work was some kind of a final farewell to Apollinaire, who died shortly before this painting was created). Max Jacob, who took monastic vows in real life in 1921, is presented as a mysterious monk. Finally, Picasso painted himself as a cheerful and reckless Harlequin. They are rivals wile on the stage, but here on the painting they are friends and musicians that are creating a "melody" of the painting and its artistic sound. All three friends were in the avant-garde of literature and pictorial art. "Three Musicians" can be considered as a monument to the departed close friends and to the bohemian youth at the same time. It is a farewell for something that will never come back. Pablo Picasso immortalized the friendship of three avant-garde artists, two poets and one painter, united by common searches for new ways in art.
The Style and Technique of "Three Musicians"
Picasso sometimes concentrated all his energy to make one painting that would summarize all his artistic period during his long artist's career. "Three Musicians" is one of those paintings. It is a huge canvas more than two meters in width and height. It is painted in an amazingly confusing mosaic style. It is saturated with gloomy innuendos and mystical symbolism.
The Figures and Their Details
There is a clarinetist on the left, a guitarist in the center, and a dark figure with notes that is singing on the right side. They are dressed as typical actors. Pierrot is dressed in blue and white, as he is a character from Italian theater. One of his limbs is long, thin and black, while the other one is absent. Harlequin is the brightest one, he is wearing orange and yellow dress made out of rhombuses. But the most mysterious figure is a monk on the right. He is dressed in black, his face is covered with the mask with a long beard, and he holds notes in his tiny claws-like hands. There is a table in front of Pierrot with different objects. There is also a dog beneath them. Light brown floor is visibly wider on the left side of the painting, while other sides and walls are uneven. It is very hard to tell where one figure ends and another one begins. The shapes are intersecting and overlapping each other. They are very similar to the way memories work. Some parts are filled with darkness and bleak lights, while others are bright and daring. The painting imitates a collage technique, but it really is oil on canvas. Figures seem to be modeled separately from each other. There is a feeling that they are individually glued to the canvas. Thanks to the style chosen by the author, the boundaries of the characters do not look tough. They are heavy, but the contours of their bodies seem to diverge in space, allowing you to see the volume, texture, mood, and movement. Picasso took inspiration for clown costumes in the commedia dell'arte style for the main characters of his canvas in the Roman theater. He tried to catch every small detail, which allowed him to realistically convey the images of friends in his work. He suffered from the limitations of the chosen style, which did not allow him to fully embody all creative thoughts. That is why Picasso seeks to modernize the formed canons and add some identity to them.
The Composition and Color
The size of the painting makes this trio of musicians festive and even majestic. The composition of the painting is simple like no other cubist painting. The plot is clear, and all the characters are quite distinguishable. But at the same time, there is no human-like shape, only a combination of colorful planes and torn figures. All the faces under the masks and all the body parts are designated by symbols, which are rough spots and geometrical figures. These images are nothing like real people, and yet they are quite recognizable. Their borderlines intervene with each other. Blue Pierrot overflows into Harlequin and his blue mask, which is transformed in its turn into the third figure of a monk. Blue meets with white, red, and black. Generally, every color meets every other color in all possible ways. The paints are lively and intensely saturated. The colors abruptly change from one to another like spotlight flashes. A complex of visual associations and bright colorful stains develop into a festive yet menacing organic whole. This ghostly and deceptive world of paints, sounds, and forms is being transformed into an extravaganza carnival spectacle in our minds. This time Pablo Picasso is interested in the festive spirit of a masquerade and not in the characters that are hiding behind theatrical clothes.
The Power of Jazz
"Three Musicians" can be compared to lively jazz music. Swing bouncing of negro jazz can be heard in the sharp color contrasts. It is no coincidence that jazz became so popular in France just at that time. Picasso animates his painted puppets with the skill of an ingenious puppeteer. Although these figures seem unreal, the gestures, habits, and antics seem inimitable in their truthfulness. This version with a dog is considered to be more expressive and interesting than the other one. Although, it is known that they were being created at the same time. Pablo Picasso thought that a painting cannot be premeditated and created according to a plan. It is being changed in the work process alongside with the flow of the mind. And even when it is finished, it still changes depending on who is observing it.
