From 1966 on, “Musketeers” form a heterogeneous, recurring group in Picasso's oeuvre. Their attributes include a pipe, a sword, a wide hat, a baroque costume, as well as shoulder-length hair and a distinctive beard that distinguishes them from the other characters of Picasso's “world stage.” The picture presented at the exhibition in Avignon in 1973 among 200 other paintings was painted with a range of different gray tones, and the sword in the right hand of the musketeer and the head with the hat occupying almost half of the canvas are remarkably emphasized, as well as the dark, penetrating, almost stiff look characteristic of Picasso, which was captured by many self-portraits and photographs. The fact that in 1972 he produced a series of self-portraits with evident formal similarities with this costumed figure may confirm the work's aim of self-portrayal. It is well known that Picasso liked to play the role of the fictitious characters by Dumas, Cervantes or Shakespeare, the same way as we see him or his son Claude wearing a musketeer's costume and a sword in photographs. K.SZ.
Related contents
1–2–3: The Collection in Focus – 2nd Floor Exhibition Space 16. November, 2007 – 10. February, 2008
This is the first time since the initial exhibitions of the Ludwig Museum in 1991 and the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1996 that the Museum’s own collection has been put in full focus: some three hundred of the five hundred items it holds will be on display on the three floors of the Museum.
Westkunst - Ostkunst. A Selection from the Collection 1. August, 2017 – 26. January, 2020
The newly set collection display makes attempts to present emphatic points not only in well-organised chronological order or along stylistic features, but to examine the characteristics, consonances, differences as well as the artistic-cultural parallels between Western and Eastern art.