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02 Blue Melancholy

In the autumn of 1901, a few months after the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas, the artist developed a new stylised, almost monochrome idiom, characterised by an expressive distortion of line inherited from El Greco. Picasso concentrated on the melancholic representation of members of the poorest social class—beggars, prostitutes, and heavy drinkers. Gradually flooded with blue, from azure to navy, his canvases became simpler, acquiring a more monumental feel.
After several months spent in Barcelona, the young painter temporarily returned to Paris at the beginning of 1903, where he stayed with the poet Max Jacob in his apartment on Boulevard Voltaire. The two friends lived in poverty: Picasso slept in the daytime, while Jacob earned a living as a salesman, and Picasso painted and drew at night. The predominance of blue in his palette might thus be explained by his habit of working in darkness, by the light of an oil lamp.