Pablo Picasso - Pablo Picasso The Old Guitarist Painting

The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso was painted in 1903, just after the suicide death of Picasso's close friend, Casagemas. Picasso's “Blue Period” spanned the years of 1901–1904, and was followed by his “Rose Period”.

Pablo Picasso The Old Guitarist is also notable for the ghostly presence of a mysterious image painted underneath. It is very likely that Picasso originally started painting a portrait of a woman, who appears to possibly be seated, and in an upset or worried mood. Not much of this image is visible except for her face and legs. This Old Guitarist painting is currently located at the Art Institute of Chicago in the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.

The Man with the Blue Guitar
Wallace Stevens penned the poem “The Man With the Blue Guitar” after viewing The Old Guitarist painting, though in the poem the guitar, rather than the man, becomes blue. The blueness here becomes an image of the transformative power of art, as expressed in the opening lines.
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."

The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."

And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."