It's 1901, and a 20-year-old Pablo Picasso begins painting beggars, drunks, and hospital patients. The subjects are all sorrowful, which isn't uncommon.
What does stand out however, is that they are cloaked in blue, all shades of it.
A few years later, this melancholic blue palette falls back and warm shades pink and orange take over. This time, the subjects depicted are acrobats, artists and circus performers from the three permanent circuses near Montmartre, where Picasso lived at the time.
These two periods will be known as Picasso's most pivotal ones, his Blue and Rose period.
Born in Málaga, Spain, Pablo Picasso demonstrated incredible artistic talent at the young age of 7. His father — Jose Ruiz— who was a painter and a professor of art provided him with formal artistic training. Upon coming across one of Picasso's paintings that he had done over his father's sketch of a pigeon, Ruiz felt his 13-year-old son's advanced technique had already surpassed him. He was then admitted into the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona.
Younger and more passionate than his classmates, he enrolled in Advanced classes.
There, he made friends with a group of modernist artists, writers, and poets including Carlos Casagemas — a Catalan painter and poet. They quickly grew close.
He accompanied Picasso to Paris for the World's Fair in 1900.
There, he fell in love with Germaine Gargallo, who ultimately rejected his affections. Disheartened, Casagemas committed suicide at the Hippodrome Cafe in Paris after first attempting to kill Germaine.
Picasso was in Barcelona when he heard about the death of his best friend.
