9 x 12″

oil on panel

When I reproduce masters’ works of art, I learn more about color, mixing paints, edging, brush strokes and composition than any class or book could possibly teach me.  My mom swore by it, which is why I spent a large chunk of my early years in museums.

Picasso’s work is a whole other thing.  Three Musicians is defined as a Synthetic Cubist style – meaning the compositions are made up of jigsaw-puzzle-like shapes, flat planes and solid colors.  You don’t look at it and think ‘look at those brush strokes’.  But I look at every shape and try to figure out where it fits, which I probably shouldn’t obsess about but that’s the jigsaw-puzzle solver in me.

The recurring characters – the masked Pierrot playing the clarinet, the Harlequin strumming a guitar and the singing monk holding sheet music represents the then-popular Italian comic theater that Picasso and his friends were involved in.  

From the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Please click here for a larger view.