Pablo Ruiz-y-Picasso "Acrobat On A Ball"

Pablo Ruiz-y-Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in the city of Málaga, Spain. Died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France.

He studied under his father - José Ruiz, in School of Fine Arts in La Coruña, then in Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando, taking a great interest in French art.

In 1900 he moved to Paris for the first time, and since 1904 lived there permanently. On that time (1901-1904) fell his ‘Blue Period’: hues of blue prevailed in the master’s palette. For pictures of that period images of poverty, melancholy and sorrow were typical.

The following, ‘Rose Period’, is characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink colors, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins.

‘Acrobat On A Ball’ (1905) is one of the best and most famous paintings of Picasso’s ‘Rose Period’, the saga of friendship. It was painted in happy and inspiring time of the painter’s life, when ‘light breathing’ and transparent colours replaced rather gloomy and stern works of the ‘Blue Period’.

It was then that the matter of intimacy and fraternal bonds became principal in Picasso’s life. The main characters of his works are acrobats, circus actors and wandering buffoons. They provoked sympathy and interest in him, despite the society’s attitude towards them. Such indigent, but free people have to unite, protecting each other like a big family in order to survive in the world of money and ‘honest estates’.

In this picture the painter represents a strong, mature man and a fragile girl, gracefully balancing on a ball. In comparison of two figures – the supple, light acrobat and the hefty athlete stoutly sitting on a cube – the motif of the picture is brought out. It is the subject of friendship and inner community of people, united by the toil of circus artistes.

The language of contrasts attracts the artist: heavy and static shapes are combined with amazingly unstable ones, what creates the wonderful harmony of the composition. The girl without the seated athlete will instantly lose her balance and slide off the ball. The leg of the strongman, bent at right angles, is visionally interpreted as a support for her body. And the man, left without his partner, will never be able to rise from the cube. The magic of the picture is found in subtle nuances of lines, shapes, in consonance of colours, in composure of the whole. There’s no constrain in figures. The space is expanded; it is filled with air and light.

The balancing acrobat and the seated man are thoroughly opposed to each other and mutually enriched through the contradiction.

‘Acrobat on a ball’, where the silhouettes and the scenery are expressed in ashy rose-blue tint, bears joyous and tender mood. Its colouration begets a new, romantic reality. At this period Picasso pays attention to the picturesque atmosphere of the work. The painter creates a refined ‘hieroglyph’ of two origins: frailty and strength. It appears that he prepares himself for the conversion to another manner of painting, that’s why this picture is often called a work of intermediate stage between his ‘Blue’ and ‘Rose’ periods.