Picasso's Blue Period at Somerset House

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It's been almost exactly one year since I went to my last exhibition of Picasso's work which focused on his later works incorporating cubism as described in this post.

Today morning a friend suggested we visit Somerset House and catch the latest Picasso exhibition before it moves from London. This is how I found myself looking at maybe two dozen or so works from Picasso's Blue Period.



The small size of the exhibition belied our expectations but I was glad to have had the chance to view one of his earliest works 'Child with a Dove' which elicits a feeling of tenderness for both child and dove. The image below is from the internet as I did not take photos inside the exhibition.



                     Source: http://www.picasso-art.com/picasso_child_with_dove.html

Picasso's works in the Blue period were quite melancholy as he was influenced by several tragedies in his personal and social life. Around this time he also did some interesting self-portraits - one of which in particular (Yo Picasso) suggests he knew he was gifted. My friend found Harlequin and Companion, or as we called them said "the bored couple in the bar" quite catching. My theory is that the companion is just miserable because they've run out of her favorite brand of lager and she has to drink wine instead leaving her even more depressed.

Source: http://notestothemilkman.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/daytripper-part-3/


Or you may instead choose to read what The Independent had to say about it all.

Picasso, as always, evokes emotions, but the air of morbidity was enough to egg us on to view other parts of the gallery in hope of finding cheerier landscapes and portraits. To some degree we were successful. I, for one, was left satisfied by some great pieces of Impressionism. There was also this below:







The ceiling in this gallery is a work of art in itself.





 The lantern-man of yore showed us the way between galleries.





It is apt to end with a photo of the spiral staircase for there must be no ancient culture that does not, in some form, talk of the metaphorical steps rising into the sky.
 

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