Garçon à la Pipe (Boy with a Pipe) is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was painted in 1905 when Pablo Picasso was 24 years old, during his Rose Period, soon after he settled in the Montmartre section of Paris, France. The oil on canvas painting depicts a Parisian boy holding a pipe in his left hand and wearing a garland or wreath of flowers.
The painting
Preparation
Early preparations of this work involved positioning the boy in all types of poses that involved standing, sitting or leaning against the wall.[1] After much repositioning of the model, Picasso decided to go with the boy sitting down. Next was how to position the arm, where much time was also spent on the height and angle. Early works do not show any objects other than a pipe being used.
Although Picasso started to paint this picture, he gave it a rest period for about a month. During this time, Picasso decided to finish it off by placing a garland of flowers on the boy's head.[1] It is not known why Picasso decided to do this, but there is a contrast between feminine and masculinity in the picture.
The boy
Le Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre is where Picasso was living when he painted the picture. Some of the local people made a living in the entertainment industry, such as being clowns or acrobats. Picasso used many local people in his pictures, but much is unknown about the boy in the picture.
What appears to be fact from comments made from a variety of sources is that the boy was a model in his teen years who hung around Picasso's studio and volunteered to pose for the oil work.[2]
Picasso own comments about the boy was he was one of the:
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local types, actors, ladies, gentlemen, delinquents... He stayed there, sometimes the whole day. He watched me work. He loved that. |
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From this comment, two interpretations can be made. The first is that Picasso did not want us to know who the boy is. The second is Picasso did not really know the boy.
Nevertheless, there has been many reports to say that this boy is “p’tit Louis”,[1][3] or "Little Louis".[4]
Painting elements
There are several elements about the picture to take into account: a young boy, blue clothes, garland of flowers, the pipe, background colour, and flowers painted in the background.
Legs
The boy's legs are notably bigger (and thicker) in the picture when compared to the arms. The distortion may have been an error when the picture was being painted, the boy had very big leg muscles, or was wearing baggy pants at the time.
Ownership history
The painting was first bought by John Hay Whitney in 1950 for US$30,000.[5][6]
On May 5, 2004 the painting was sold for US$104,168,000 at Sotheby's auction in New York City. Sotheby’s did not say who bought the painting.[6] At the time, it broke the record for the amount paid for an auctioned painting (when inflation is ignored). The amount, US$104 million, includes the auction price of US$93 million plus the auction house’s commission of about US$11 million.[6] The painting was given a pre-sale estimate of US$70 million by the auction house.[5][6]
Many art critics have stated that the painting's high sale price has much more to do with the artist's name than with the merit or historical importance of the painting. The Washington Post's article[7] on the sale contained the following characterisation of the reaction:
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Picasso expert Pepe Karmel, reached in New York the morning after the sale, was waxing wroth about the whole affair. "I'm stunned," he said, "that a pleasant, minor painting could command a price appropriate to a real masterwork by Picasso. This just shows how much the marketplace is divorced from the true values of art." |
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See also
References
- ^ a b c http://www.safran-arts.com/42day/art/art4apr/art0408.html
- ^ http://www.artist-art.com/famous-artist.htm
- ^ http://www.esparagon.com/MostExpensivePaintings.htm
- ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/05/06/bapipe06.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/05/06/ixartleft.html
- ^ a b http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3682127.stm
- ^ a b c d http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4910225/
- ^ A Record Picasso and the Hype Price of Status Objects, Blake Gopnik, The Washington Post, May 7, 2004
External links
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