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Actor

Pablo Picasso • Painting, 1904, 196.2×115.3 cm
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About the artwork
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Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Portrait
Style of art: Post-Impressionism
Technique: Oil
Materials: Canvas
Date of creation: 1904
Size: 196.2×115.3 cm
Artwork in collection: Picasso Irina Olikh
Artwork in selections: 12 selections

Description of the artwork «Actor»

Simple but catchy picture "Actor" - this is the work with which Picasso ended his obsession with the destitute and interest was born in the circus world of acrobats and comedians. The elongated thin figure and unusual position of the hands still resemble the “blue period” mannerism inspired by El Greco. But “Actor” can already be seen as a prologue to a series of works, the culmination of which was a huge canvas"Family of comedians" (1905, National Gallery of Art in Washington).

In fact, this picture with its new theme, palette and sensuality opens the “pink period” in the work of Picasso (from 1904 to 1906), which coincides with the appearance in the life of the 24-year-old artist, a new lover, Fernanda Olivier. Before that - during the years of the “blue period" - he lived in extreme poverty, constantly hungry and experienced alienation. All this was expressed in blue-tinted images of emaciated, emaciated, unhappy souls who barely survived on the sidelines of society.

A romantic relationship with Fernanda favorably influenced the work of Picasso. The delight of physicality and sensual joy began to supplant the once excruciating despair. Harlequins, circus performers and clowns began to appear in the paintings, which will inhabit the canvases at different stages until the end of his long career.

And if the “blue period” of Pablo Picasso today enjoys wider popularity among the public, the “pink” has a much greater artistic and historical significance. In this period of time, he began to develop stylistic methods that made him the most significant artist of the 20th century. However, the contemporaries of Picasso did not distinguish between the “blue” and “pink” periods, considering them one. The artist’s depression subsided, but did not stop. It actually continued until the “Cubist period” (which followed the “pink”), and only in the subsequent period of neoclassicism did his work begin to demonstrate playfulness, which remained an outstanding feature of his work until the end of his life.

But if the works of the “blue period” seem to express the artist’s grief, the heroes of the paintings of the “pink period” do not grieve, although they still show humility to fate. Picasso’s works in the “pink period” begin to lead their own lives in the artistic spirit of their time - the painting itself acquires the greatest importance, and not its theme and content. Picasso continued to experiment, making his characters anonymous, more likely representing the artistic matrix of a person, rather than the person himself. “Actor” is one example of this: we recognize the type of person, and not the person himself; the character is characterized, but this is not a portrait.

The “Pink Period” marks the end of development, during which Picasso found himself as a figurative artist. Over the years spent in Paris at that time, he absorbed French culture, replacing the gravity of his “blue period” with Parisian elegance. After the completion of the “pink period”, Picasso continued to create figurative works from time to time, but this ceased to be his main style.

The first owner of the "Actor" was Frank Burtie Haviland - a wealthy Franco-American artist and friend of Picasso. The picture first appeared before the public at the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne in 1912, where it was lent by the German industrialist Paul Leffman. In 1938, the collector sold the canvas, escaping from Nazi Germany. On this basis, in 2011, his heirsfiled a restitution lawsuit against the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which in 1951 received the work as a gift from the heiress of the automotive empire of Thelma Chrysler Foy. However, American courts of various instances have consistently ruled in favor of the museum.

Author: Vlad Maslov
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