Three Musicians 1921

Pablo Picasso made this painting of Three Musicians with oil on canvas sometime in the early 20th century, and what strikes me about it is the way that the composition is made up of flat, geometric shapes, and the colors are really simplified—mostly browns, blues, and whites. You get the sense that Picasso is thinking about painting as a kind of construction project. I love how the textures and colors push and pull against each other. The brown background is fairly neutral, which helps the brighter blues and whites to pop forward. Notice how the shapes are outlined with a darker tone, this adds to the sense of volume. The music notes on the sheet in the foreground are painted with a casual looseness, almost like they're about to float off the page. It’s as though he’s saying, “this is a painting, not a window”. When I look at this, I think of other artists who were playing with similar ideas, like Braque, or even some of the later work of Matisse. It's like they're all having this ongoing conversation about how we see and represent the world.