Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds
Audio Exhibition
Youth
Hello, I am Lyn Redder, a gallery attendant at the museum. I will be reading an introduction to the “Youth” section of Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds.
Pablo Picasso began studying art with his father, whose teaching appointments at various art academies moved the family across Spain in the 1890s, from Málaga to La Coruña and finally to Barcelona. As a young art student, Picasso learned to draw and paint in the nineteenth-century academic tradition, which included leaving the studio to work in nature. Out in the landscape, he captured the nuances of the Andalusian, Galician, and Catalonian countryside on modestly scaled canvases. Though largely representational, these paintings foreshadow the layering of forms and experimentation with pictorial depth that would define Picasso’s landscapes in years to come. Picasso briefly attended the Royal Academy in Madrid in 1897, but charted a personal course in his late teenage years—travelling, visiting museums to study the Old Masters, and experimenting on his own.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, active in France, 1881–1973), Interior, Barcelona, January–March 1900, oil on canvas, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Gift of Pablo Picasso, 1970, MPB 110.062 © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society, (ARS), New York, Courtesy American Federation of Arts, 19 11/16 x 12 5/8 in. (50 x 32.1 cm)
Verbal Description
Hello, I am Lyn Redder, a gallery attendant at the museum. I will be reading a description of the painting Interior in Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds.
Pablo Picasso, a Spanish artist who lived from 1881 to 1973, painted Interior in oil on canvas between January and March 1900 in Barcelona. It was a gift of the artist to the Picasso Museum Barcelona, where its reference number is MPB 110.062.
Interior is a vertically oriented painting measuring about 19 and a half by 12 and a half inches or 50 by 32 centimeters. Centered in the upper half of the picture, a nine-paned window draws the viewer’s attention. A tan window shade covers the top three panes. Through the window, we see a cityscape described in wavey forms and perhaps mountains or clouds in the distance in shades of white, light blue, gray, brown, and black. The artist captures the room’s interior in dark blues, grays, and black, cropping tightly on the window. Only the wall on either side and beneath the window and a strip of tannish-gray floor are visible.
Label Text
Hello, I am Lyn Redder, a gallery attendant at the museum. I will be reading the label for the painting Interior in Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds.
Pablo Picasso, a Spanish artist who lived from 1881 to 1973, painted Interior in oil on canvas between January and March 1900 in Barcelona. It was a gift of the artist to the Picasso Museum Barcelona, where its reference number is MPB 110.062.
For nearly seventy years, from his time as a student to his final days, Picasso was fascinated by the compositional contrasts made possible by painting architecture and nature side by side. Interior showcases a particularly favored motif: the window. As framing devices, windows allowed Picasso to examine the opposing worlds of internal and external space at the same time. Here he fostered tension through the play of light; a modest, darkened room appears somber against the brighter world beyond. By situating the viewer inside, Picasso initiated a moment of quiet reflection on the private and public spaces that define the landscape of a city.