Pablo Picasso

Hello, my name is Pablo Picasso, and I want to tell you my story. It begins in a sunny town called Málaga, Spain, where I was born on October 25, 1881. My father, José Ruiz y Blasco, was an artist and an art professor, and he saw something special in me from a very young age. While other boys were kicking a ball, I was clutching a paintbrush. He was my first and most important teacher, showing me how to draw with precision and discipline. Legend has it that my first word was 'piz,' short for 'lápiz,' the Spanish word for pencil. Art was simply in my blood. I must admit, regular school was not for me. My mind was always drifting, filled with images and shapes. My report cards were not very impressive, but my sketchbooks were filled with life. By the time I was just 13 years old, my father recognized that my skill had already surpassed his own. In a symbolic gesture, he handed me his brushes and palette and vowed never to paint again. It was a heavy responsibility, but also a sign that my path was set. In 1895, my family moved to Barcelona, and I was accepted into the city's School of Fine Arts. Two years later, in 1897, I moved to Madrid to attend the Royal Academy of San Fernando, the most prestigious art school in Spain. But I quickly grew restless. The classes focused on copying the old masters and sticking to strict, traditional rules. My head was buzzing with new ideas, and I felt trapped. I knew that to truly express what was inside me, I had to find my own way, even if it meant breaking all the rules.

At the turn of the century, in 1900, I made the most important move of my life: I went to Paris, France. Paris was the heart of the art world, a vibrant city where artists and writers gathered to share revolutionary ideas. It was thrilling, but also incredibly difficult. I was young, spoke little French, and had very little money. Some nights were cold and hungry, but my passion for art burned brightly and kept me warm. My early years in Paris were marked by hardship and the loss of a dear friend. My emotions spilled onto my canvases, and I began to paint almost exclusively in shades of blue and blue-green. This became known as my 'Blue Period,' which lasted from about 1901 to 1904. I painted the poor, the lonely, and the outcasts of society. The cool, somber colors perfectly captured the melancholy I felt and saw around me. These paintings were not cheerful, but they were honest and a true reflection of my state of mind. But life, like art, is always changing. By 1904, I had fallen in love and found a community of friends who supported me. My mood lifted, and so did the colors on my palette. I entered what is called my 'Rose Period.' My paintings were now filled with warm oranges, pinks, and earthy tones. I became fascinated with circus performers—acrobats and clowns—and they became the subjects of my work. They were artists, just like me, living on the fringes of society but full of grace and hidden strength. It was during this time, around 1906, that I met another artist who would change my life and the course of art history: Georges Braque. He was thoughtful and brilliant, and together, we felt that art was on the verge of something completely new. We were ready to take a leap into the unknown.

Georges Braque and I talked for hours about art. We looked at the world and felt that paintings were not telling the whole story. A traditional portrait shows you a person from one angle, just as a camera would. But is that how we really see things? We see the front of a face, but we know the side is there, too. We see a guitar from the front, but our mind knows it has a curved back. We wanted to show all of that—the front, the back, the sides—all at once on a flat canvas. It was a radical idea, a true revolution in seeing. So, starting around 1907, Georges and I embarked on an artistic adventure together. We began to break down objects and people into their basic geometric forms—cubes, cones, and cylinders. That is why the style was later named 'Cubism.' We abandoned the traditional rules of perspective that artists had followed for hundreds of years. Instead, we created a new kind of space where you could see multiple viewpoints simultaneously. It was like we were taking things apart and putting them back together to show a deeper truth about them. In 1907, I finished a painting that would become a landmark of this new way of thinking. It was called 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.' It depicted five figures with sharp, angular bodies and mask-like faces. When I first showed it to my friends, they were shocked. Some were even angry. They had never seen anything like it. The painting was not meant to be beautiful in the traditional sense. It was meant to be powerful and to challenge everything people thought they knew about art. It was the birth of a new artistic language, and it opened the door for all the modern art that would follow.

My journey with Cubism was just one chapter in a very long book. I never wanted to be an artist who found one style and stuck with it forever. For me, to live was to create, and to create was to constantly change and explore. I moved through different styles, from classical-looking figures to surreal, dream-like scenes. My art was a diary of my life, reflecting my joys, my loves, and my sorrows. One of the darkest times came in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. A defenseless town in Spain, Guernica, was brutally bombed. I was living in Paris, but my heart was with my people. I poured all of my rage and grief into a gigantic black-and-white painting I called 'Guernica.' It is a chaotic, powerful mural filled with suffering figures. It was not a painting of the event itself, but a universal cry for peace and a protest against the cruelty of war. It became one of my most famous works, a symbol of tragedy. Painting was not my only love. I found joy in transforming everyday objects into art. A bicycle seat and handlebars became the head of a bull; scraps of metal were welded into playful sculptures. I also fell in love with ceramics, creating thousands of plates, bowls, and vases. My life was long, and I worked tirelessly until the very end. I passed away on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91. My goal was never just to make pretty pictures. I wanted to stir people's emotions, to make them see the world through new eyes, and to inspire them to find their own creative voice. Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life, and I hope my work continues to do just that.