Artwork Page for La Vie

Details / Information for La Vie

La Vie

1903

Pablo Picasso

(Spanish, 1881–1973)
Culture
Spain
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
Framed: 239 x 170 x 10 cm (94 1/8 x 66 15/16 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 196.5 x 129.2 cm (77 3/8 x 50 7/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of the Hanna Fund 1945.24
Catalogue raisonné
Zervos I.179; Sutton/Lecaldano 89; Daix, Boudaille, Rosselet IX.13; Palau i Fabre: 882; PP 1903-071
Copyright
© Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
223 20th Century Avant-Garde
Print
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Did You Know?

Picasso began drawing as a child and studying at an art school at age eleven. He later remarked that "art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."

Description

The subject of this painting has been interpreted variously as a realistic portrayal of a working-class couple facing the challenges of poverty and as a symbolic representation of the cycle of life, with the infant representing childhood, the couple representing youth, and the draped woman representing age. In 1901, depressed by the suicide of his friend, the poet and painter Carles Casagemas, Pablo Picasso began the melancholic paintings of his Blue Period (1901–4). Twenty-one years old and struggling to support himself, he restricted his palette to cool colors suggestive of night, mystery, dreams, and death. His interest in themes of suffering and social alienation culminated in this painting.
A vertically oriented oil painting in blue tones depicts seven people with light skin tones. On the right, a person wrapped in a blue cloak holds a baby and looks at two people on our left, a nude woman leaning on the chest of a man only wearing underwear. In the background, two nude people sit and embrace, one curling in to the other's chest. Below, a single nude person rests their head on their knees.

La Vie

1903

Pablo Picasso

(Spanish, 1881–1973)
Spain

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