Picasso Museum
10/10/20 Early January, I sent a postcard from Vatican to a friend in China. Because of the pandemic, this card arrived in its destination on 5.27, and it is my friend’s birthday, yo 😀 The most exaggerate birthday of her is that one year, I wrote a riddle on the card indicating where I was. She solved it. When she arrived, I pushed out a birthday cake in some very dark lecture hall. Later, I wrote an article on the magazine “am I a lesbian?!” The editor said it is very good. HAHA
The cool thing about some European museums is that you can see the entire lifetime work of an artist! There are two museums in Spain dedicated to Picasso, one is in Málaga (where he was born) and the other is in Barcelona (where he lived).
The first one has a long line, and the second one only accepts online reservations (1 or 2 days ahead will just be fine) so no lines at all.
Who misses lines and people ?!?!
(Malaga)
the street in front of Museo Picasso (Barcelona)
Unlike Van Gogh, Picasso is an academic painter. He studied painting since he was little (his father was also a painter). He went to the art schools and was surrounded by the art communities throughout his entire life. As a result, he produced large amount of work, and much of his early work is in this two-story Museo Picasso.
Below is a few memorable moments I recorded from this museum.
Becoming famous: When I browsed through his work, I had a question on “how he started becoming famous”. Then I found in 1897, he received the honorable mention from Madrid exhibition of fine arts for this work “Science and Charity”. People started to recognize him since then.
Studying a color using a few years: Around 1901 (when he was around 20 years old), he started to study “blue”. In a few years, his work is dominated by the blue, so the entire hall in the museum has the paintings like this:
Images and words: in 1937, Picasso did almost daily drawings with text on the sheet of Arches paper. He connected images and words via “rhythms”. When the lines and shapes in the paintings have rhythms, which he called poetic. He had many poets friends. He said “If I were Chinese, I would not be a painter but be a writer, I would writer my paintings”. Hmm, maybe I should try it: first I should write some Chinese poem, and then convert the characters to the old Chinese characters (called xiang(4) xin(2) wen(2) zi(4)), which are based on the drawings. Then I arrange them in a painting/drawing, noted with the poem, lol. His “images and words” probably is my favorite part of the museum.
He loves hot women haha 
Las Meninas: it is a famous painting by Diego Velázquez in 1656. Picasso did a thorough analysis and interpretations of this painting in 1957. The hall in the museum is called “Las Meninas”.
On the left is the original painting, on the right is Picasso’s interpretations
Late life: when he was old, he lived in a house near the ocean. He painted many of his pigeons raised on his porch.
Some other fun pieces: you can see these mixed perspectives, collage styles and a not-very-Picasso-style cartoon.
