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Fine Tuning: Guitar and Violin

7:00 AM

Picasso, Guitar and Violin, 1912

Fine Tuning
By NATALIE BEYER


As I write my last blog post of my Junior year in Renaissance Art History late on a Friday night, I would like to thank all the wonderful people I have been able to work with this year in this class. I have learned much, and have much more to learn. I think that this painting might reflect my year in Art History. Abstract, colorful, and strange. At first glance, it seems like a mess of shapes and colors, but really there's more to it. Put together is supposedly a guitar and a violin, and just like my year in this class, all the miscellaneous information that I have learned in the class adds up to something meaningful. 

Picasso, whose full name has actually twenty three words in it, originated in Spain. When he was born, he was so darn small that his midwife thought he was a stillborn. His uncle would come to his saving on that occasion. Picasso completed his first painting at just the age of nine and was known not to be the best student, frequently given detentions. As he got older, he progressed into being a co-founder of the style of Cubism - paintings or works made of simple geometric shapes, interlocking planes, and later, collages. He experienced different periods of art which included the rose period, the blue period, each of which he used a theme of blue or rose in his paintings.  

His earlier paintings, before he got into the Cubism style were not so abstract. When viewing one of his early paintings, one can see what he was actually trying to paint instead of using one's imagination. The Guitar and Violin that he painted in 1912 looks nothing like a guitar and violin. (Definition of a Violin: a bowed stringed instrument having four strings that range from G to E having a shallow body, shoulders at right angles to the neck, a fingerboard without frets, and a curved bridge) The violin is played in the treble clef, just like how a guitar and piano are. However, bits and pieces from each instrument in this painting are sprawled out throughout the painting. The scroll from the violin is in the top right corner, the strings from the guitar are in the left-middle of the painting and so is the body of the guitar. 

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