Pablo Picasso Harlequin (1927) - Pillow Case

About Picasso's Harlequin (1927)

The Spanish-born artist Pablo Picasso became one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th century. His development of the artistic movement cubism, presented to other artists the opportunity to stray away from conventional mimetic representation of the world around us, and further invited artist towards artistic experimentation. Artists such as Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Robert Delaunay and many more resemble the strong influence of Pablo Picasso's cubism in their visual language. Throughout his artistic career, Pablo Picasso made numerous works representing harlequins which is evidenced from his early works in his "rose period" to his later cubist style. Picasso's painting "Harlequin" (1927), currently located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is interpreted as a self-portrait of the artist's alter-ego, Harlequin. Scholars interpret Picasso's 1927 Harlequin as a self portrait due to the inclusion of the lozenges in the lower-bottom right corner of the image, and of a shadow of a face, believed to be that of Picasso himself. By including his own shadow's reflection looking down on the Harlequin suggests an introspective observation of the distancing between his alter-ego Harlequin and himself. Picasso's Harlequin was done during a time Picasso's career where he felt trapped in his relationship with the Russian dance Olga Khoklova due to her mental state.