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Born in Málaga, Picasso was the son of a painter José Ruiz Blasco, but used the birth name of his mother, Maria Picasso. His father gave him early tuition, and he attended Barcelona School of Fine Arts, before visiting Paris in 1900, where he settled permanently in 1904. To begin with his work was concerned with the social scene, after the fashion of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, but between 1901 and 1904 he turned to austere figure studies, blue being the dominant colour (Blue Period). Circus pictures followed, delicate and more varied in colour (Rose Period, 190406).
An epoch-making change in his art followed when between 1907 and 1909, together with Georges Braque, he developed cubism, from the study of Cézanne combined with that of Negro sculpture and primitive art. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) marks the birth of the cubist movement, to which Picasso adhered until 1914. Like Braque, he practised successively its analytic form (construction in depth) and its synthetic form (more decorative and two-dimensional in effect). A feature of his cubist still life of 191214 usually depicting musical instruments, friends, and portraiture was the use of collage. He also created cubist sculptures, using bronze, construction, and other sculpting materials.
He met the Russian ballet impressario Sergei Diaghilev in Rome in 1914, with whom he designed the décor of a number of ballets 19171927. He reverted to a neoclassical style 192024, in painting and in outline etchings of classical themes. A new and imaginative phase of his art began in about 1925, and coincided with the development of surrealism. Although claiming he was not a surrealist, Picasso's images were often akin to those of the surrealist group. This quasi-surrealist period called the period of metamorphosis lasted for about 10 years. The bull, a traditional Spanish emblem of conflict and tragedy, began to appear in paintings and etchings, and in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, he made use of this symbolism in Guernica(Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofoetrya, Madrid), a fierce pictorial comment on a deplorable bombing incident. In later works he moved freely from one style and one medium to another, using all with astonishing freedom and virtuosity.
Black recalls the country's tragic past. White reflects the Georgians' hopes for the future. Dark red is the national colour and is said to represent happiness. Effective date: 14 November 1990.
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