Works of Art I Know

Three Musicians, 1921

Pablo Picasso, Spanish

My First Impressions: 

Although there are three musicians in this picture it is hard to distinguish the three. There is are so many colors blended together that the attention really is brought to the middle musician because his outfit is the only part of the painting using warm colors and clear shapes (in this case triangles). Picasso used a lot of earth tones and cool tones in this painting. 

What I've Learned:

The middle musician is a Harlequin (recurring throughout Picasso's work, some say as a stand-in for the artist himself) guitar player with a masked Pierrot to his left and a monk to his right. Although I didn't realize it at first, there is a dog in the bottom left corner. Picasso used Synthetic Cubism to create this "jigsaw-puzzle-like composition." 

Sources:

http://moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78630 

http://artquotes.net/masters/picasso_cubism.htm