Image of les trois musiciens picasso dates

1921 cubist paintings by Pablo Picasso

Not to be confused with Three Musicians (Velázquez).

Three Musicians, also known as Musicians with Masks or Musicians in Masks, is a large oil painting created by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. He painted two versions of Three Musicians. Both versions were completed in the summer of 1921 in Fontainebleau near Paris, France, in the garage of a villa that Picasso was using as his studio. They exemplify the Synthetic Cubist style; the flat planes of color and "intricate puzzle-like composition" giving the appearance of cutout paper with which the style originated. These paintings each colorfully represent three figures wearing masks. The two figures in the center and left are wearing the costumes of Pierrot and Harlequin from the popular Italian theater Commedia dell'arte, and the figure on the right is dressed as a monk. In one version, there also is a dog underneath the table.

Although both versions share the same subject, the darker version today is more famous than the other.

Description

The Pierrot is believed to represent the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the Harlequin is believed to represent Picasso, and the monk is believed to represent the poet Max Jacob. Apollinaire and Jacob were close friends of Picasso during the 1910s. However, Apollinaire died from the Spanish flu on November 9, 1918, and Jacob entered a Benedictine monastery in June 1921.

MoMA version

The setting of this version is a bare, dark brown, boxlike space, where the floor is a lighter brown color than the walls. Unscrambling the jigsaw in this one is quite a challenge.

In the space are three figures behind a table. On the table are still-life objects, which Picasso identified as a pipe, a package of tobacco, and a pouch.

The figure on the left is the Pierrot, the sad clown from Commedia dell'arte. He has a white pointy

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This celebrated work, now in the New York Museum of Modern Art, is part of series painted while was with his young family in the Fontaineblueau in the summer of 1921. It marks a return to high Synthetic Cubism and his enduring Commedia dellArte imaginary, commenced in the early days in Paris. His continuing association with the refined world of ballet, through his wife and through his work designing sets and costumes for Diaghilev, is evident throughout.

Three Musicians is a large painting measuring more than 2 meters wide and high. It is painted in the style of Synthetic Cubism and gives the appearance of cut paper.

Picasso paints three musicians made of flat, brightly colored, abstract shapes in a shallow, boxlike room. On the left is a clarinet player, in the middle a guitar player, and on the right a singer holding sheets of music. They are dressed as familiar figures: Pierrot, wearing a blue and white suit; Harlequinn, in an orange and yellow diamond-patterned costume; and, at right, a friar in a black robe. In front of Pierrot stands a table with a pipe and other objects, while beneath him is a dog, whose belly, legs, and tail peep out behind the musician's legs. Like the boxy brown stage on which the three musicians perform, everything in this painting is made up of flat shapes. Behind each musician, the light brown floor is in a different place, extending much farther toward the left than the right. Framing the picture, the floor and the flat walls make the room lopsided, but the musicians seem steady. Music Makers in Harmony; It is hard to tell where one musician starts and another stops, because the shapes that create them intersect and overlap, as if they were paper cutouts. Pierrot, the figure in blue and white, holds a clarinet in his hands; one hand is connected to a long, thin, black arm, while the other hand lacks an arm. Three Musicians em

Artist: Lucien Clergue (French, 1934 - 2014)

Date: 1959

Medium: Gelatin-silver print

Classification: Photographs

Credit Line: Gift of Dorothy M. Price

Object number: 1988.22E

Label Text:
Lucien Clergue began making photographs in 1949, when he was fifteen years old. He first met Pablo Picasso in 1953 when he had the moxie to approach the most famous artist in Spain and France, and perhaps the entire world, with his portfolio of photographs. Picasso was impressed, and perhaps flattered, with Clergue’s images of children dressed as harlequins; images that so closely mimicked the master’s work from the early 20th century. Asking to see more of the young photographer’s work, Clerque spent the next several years preparing a portfolio. After their second meeting, the two men became close friends and Clerque began photographing Picasso extensively.