Pablo Picasso

Picasso’s inspiration for itinerant figures and other masculine characters in his oeuvre can be traced to his Spanish childhood and his familiarity with Cervantes’ Don Quixote.  Circus performers also signified for him the golden age of painting and allowed him to escape the limitations of contemporary subject matter.  Here was a subject that embodied the courtly performers of the Renaissance, and Picasso now resurrected him for a 20^th century audience.  The artist’s rendering of this image was also his tribute to the work of two painters he had adored throughout his life: Diego Velázquez, whose portraits of 17^th century Spanish nobility and sword-wielding monarchs  were sources of inspiration for the present work (Fig. 1).    In addition, the Dutch master, Rembrandt van Rijn, whom Jacqueline Roque credited as being a key influence on Picasso’s art of this period.   It was through these reinterpretations and investigations of the Old Masters that Picasso reaffirmed his connection to some of the greatest painters in the history of art.

Fig. 1  Diego Velázquez, Count-Duke of Olivares on Horseback, 1634,  Museo del Prado, Madrid