The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso

Where is the Old Guitarist painting located?

The Old Guitarist 
by Pablo Picasso 
(1903-1904) 

The Old Guitarist, oil painting on canvas by Pablo Picasso, who is one of the greatest artists of all time, is crated in 1903 and early 1904 soon afterwards his best friend Carlos Casagemas’s suicide leading cause of death. It is exhibited in Art Institute of Chicago within Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection. The painting depicts a desperate and blind guitarist over the streets of Barcelona, Spain. Monochromatic blue background concerning the Blue Period of Picasso, is the prominent indicator to reveal dark times of the artist. During this period, Picasso created over 14 canvases with his blue palette and highly focused on pathos of human being to depict the both positive and negative terms, such as solitude, sorrow and hope. 

The Death of Casagemas

The Death of Casagemas (1901)
by Pablo Picasso

Searching for fortune and fame, drives two friends to Paris from Madrid when Pablo Picasso was 19 years old. Unexpected death by suicide of Casagemas, put Picasso in a depressed condition and brought to ruin him over years. This pessimistic timeline of his art between 1901 and 1904, called as Blue Period while categorizing the masterpieces of Pablo Picasso by art historians.

The Old Guitarist Analysis

Carlos Casagemas 
in His Coffin 
by Pablo Picasso 
(1901)

Art movements like Constructivism, Symbolism, Futurism, Modernism, Impressionism and Post Impressionism (related to Avant-Garde) have impacts on The Old Guitarist and relevantly Pablo Picasso’s artistic process. However, it lived short, it is possible to claim Vorticism which is related to Cubism (see Guernica), also has an impact on the portrait. But priorly, effects of Symbolist Movement are seen obviously. Depiction of blindness indicates the inner vision of an artist just like many blind figures in Picasso paintings. Representation of this poor musician who plays his guitar for a couple of pennies in order to keep living, can be accepted as a criticism of society examples. Painting a blind musician form lower class, was probably not challenging for Picasso, because after he lost his best friend Casagemas, years of poverty had begun for him when he was not famous or rich. Those days, Picasso had a lot of time with gypsies, immorals and beggars.

What is the Old Guitarist about?

The Ascetic 
by Pablo Picasso 
(1903)

The Crouching Beggar 
by Pablo Picasso 
(1902)

The large brown guitar is the only element that has a vivid color against all melancholic colors in this two dimensional painting. It symbolizes hope for an artist to get rid of the bad days. When it is compared to dark gray tones, dull greens and melancholic blues, bright yellow tones creates a contrast and have a purpose of arousing people’s interests into the figure which implies to hope. Just like in The Crouching Beggar (1902) and The Ascetic (1903) paintings by Pablo Picasso, usage of bright colors fit the purpose of symbolizing survival hope via bread, drink and blanket.

What inspired Picasso to paint?

El Greco's Self Portrait 
(1595-1600)

To reveal the inspiration source of Pablo Picasso while creating The Old Guitarist, two masterpieces done by El Greco and George Frederic Watts, come to the forefront. El Greco, who is counted as the father of Expressionism and Cubism, is a greek painter, sculptor and architect. He received his education in the style of Byzantine Art (see Deesis) in Crete Island where was a part of the Republic of Venice. In 1570, after he had moved to Rome, he created Mannerism art movement and had a significant part in the early stages of Renaissance. By strange color choices, lengthened body parts and forced angular perspectives, El Greco’s painting style impacted the art of Pablo Picasso, especially in his Blue Period. When it is focused on body structures of the figures in El Greco paintings, it is seen that abnormal limbs and arms make the portrait gain depth, however they drift the sense of reality away.

Hope by 
George Frederic Watts 
(1885)

Despite the inspiration of technical details comes from El Greco, Picasso availed himself of Hope painting of George Frederic Watts to create the Old Guitarist. In Hope, a poorly dressed blind woman was depicted on the globelike floor and playing her lyre with one single string. Contrary to The Old Guitarist, eyes of the musician are covered with a bandage to imply the blindness of the figure obviously. In both paintings, blue and green tones had been used to import a desperate and sick atmosphere to the observers, while light tones of brown refer to hope. Another spectacular coincidence is clearly seen between the Old Guitarist and The Man with the Blue Guitar, which is a poem written by Wallace Stevens in 1937. However, depictions in the book seem to narrate The Old Guitarist, the poet denied the relation and inspiration on his behalf.

X Ray Discovery and Hidden Sketches

Mother and Child 
by the Sea 
X ray image

Mother and Child 
by the Sea 
by Pablo Picasso 
(1902)

Along with technological progress concerning the invention of x ray machines, an opportunity brought about. Nowadays, it is piece of cake to have detailed x ray scans of those priceless artworks and reveal their secrets. In the years of poverty for Picasso, he was not able to afford new canvases. Art historians believe that it is the reason of existing those three figures sketched underneath The Old Guitarist. Moreover, some other paintings such as Mother and Child by the Sea (1902) and The Blue Room (1901) from Picasso’s Blue Period, include older drawings when their x ray images checked.

The Blue Room 
(X ray)

The Blue Room 
by Pablo Picasso 
(1901)

Besides the madonna and young woman depicted respectively, two other sketches are clearly seen. Until those hidden drawings are not relevant to each other, authorities support the theory that Picasso did not paint over his older sketches on purpose but because of poverty.

Hidden Woman 
Underneath 
the Old Guitarist

The Old Guitarist 
X ray image

After Art Institute of Chicago shares the copies of the Old Guitarist with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. State, William Robins and his colleague Max Jacob identified the drawings under the portrait. They have revealed shadowy figures of a woman with her little child and an animal, which is probably a cow. Many x ray images can be extracted from a copy of The Old Guitarist today worldwide.

How much is the Old Guitarist worth today?

Boy with a Pipe 
by Pablo Picasso 
(1905)

The masterpiece of Pablo Picasso, is an oil painting on canvas with size of 130 cm × 82.6 cm (48.4 in × 32.5 in). Price of The Old Guitarist cannot be specified unless the Art Institute of Chicago decides to sell it. However, it is accepted priceless by authorities, The Old Guitarist quite likely worths more than $104.2 million which was the latest price of the Boy with a Pipe sold in 2004. If these two paintings, which belong to the Blue Period and Rose Period of Picasso, are assumed in same value, via an inflation calculation regard to the yearly change in USA, The Old Guitarist theoretically worths around $145.4 million today in 2020, even if the Art Institute of Chicago does not tend to sell it.