Description
This painting was created during Picasso’s early years as an artist after moving to Paris from Barcelona in 1904. As a young man with little money, Picasso lived in a studio in a dilapidated building known as the Bateau-Lavoir. He was fortunate to be surrounded by the many young artists who lived in the building and local area, but for Picasso, this was a period of loneliness and poverty. His sympathy for lonely, poor and isolated people is most evident in the melancholy paintings of his Blue Period, which continued until 1904. By 1905, Picasso shifted his outlook and began to paint in a new palette of warmer shades, depicting subjects with a more positive undertone. In this Rose Period, Picasso developed an interest in the life of the saltimbanque, or travelling circus performer, often depicting groups or families of acrobats.
Bibliography:
Family of Saltimbanques, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Family_of_Saltimbanques&oldid=1030189953 (last visited Sept. 20, 2022).
