La Vie

From the museum

The subject of this painting has been interpreted variously as a realistic portrayal of a working-class couple facing the challenges of poverty and as a symbolic representation of the cycle of life, with the infant representing childhood, the couple representing youth, and the draped woman representing age. In 1901, depressed by the suicide of his friend, the poet and painter Carles Casagemas, Pablo Picasso began the melancholic paintings of his Blue Period (1901–4). Twenty-one years old and struggling to support himself, he restricted his palette to cool colors suggestive of night, mystery, dreams, and death. His interest in themes of suffering and social alienation culminated in this painting. Picasso began drawing as a child and studying at an art school at age eleven. He later remarked that "art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."

The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC0