The Old Guitarist is the most iconic work of Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904), in which he worked with a monochromatic palette, painting tragic, sorrowful themes. In this period Picasso was intrigued by blindness and seemingly blind figures can be found in several of his works including The Frugal Repast (1904), The Blind Man's Meal (1903) and the 1903 portrait Celestina, a woman with one milky unseeing eye.
Literature of the Symbolist often employed blind characters who possessed powers of inner vision.
The Old Guitarist with his closed eyes, averted from the world, focused on the guitar instrument is perfect example of the time it was painted (1903 in Madrid) and of the Picasso's Blue Period.
The Old Guitarist is notable for the ghostly presence of a mysterious image painted underneath. It is very likely that Picasso originally started painting a portrait of a woman. The curators of The Art Institute of Chicago, where Picasso's painting is currently on display, studied it using infrared scans and X-rays to see what Picasso had painted over. At the space above the guitar player's ear they discovered an abandoned portrait of a nude young woman, seated and nursing a child from her right breast, as well as a calf and cow. The reason Picasso did not complete the composition with a mother and child remain unknown.
Picasso loved the music, as well as the traditional carnivals and fairs of Catalonia. He also enjoyed the local flamenco music and cante jondo (deep song) . In Barcelona, Picasso often met with artists and musicians at the Café ‘El Quatre Gats’. After moving to Paris, Picasso became part of a group of artists and musicians who frequented the bistro ‘Au Lapin Agile’.
The Old Guitarist painting always reminds me of an oil on canvas by Vincent van Gogh, known as "The Starry Night" , painted in June, 1889, immortalized in a song "Vincent" by Don McLean who wrote the lyrics in 1971 after reading a book about the life of van Gogh.
I'm sure that one day someone will find inspiration in Picasso's "The Old Guitarist" painting to write either song lyrics or music scores too!
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