New Left Review I/6, November-December 1960

Martin Baillie

Early Picasso

the paintings of the blue period brought Picasso an early reputation in Paris, and perhaps as a consequence there has been a tendency both to minimise those prior to 1901 as “early works”, forming a prelude to his real development, and to lump together all those of 1901–1904 as “of the blue period”. The Interior of a Tavern (P1. 4b) [1] This is not a review of the Tate Exhibition but since many of the paintings referred to here were hung in that exhibition I have given the catalogue reference. of 1897, whilst lacking the “originality” so prized by contemporary criticism, is a piece of robust reportage in the Forain-Steinlen tradition, with a dash of early Van Gogh. The Dwarf Dancer (P1. 26) of 1901, which the catalogue to the Tate exhibition lists under the blue period, clearly lies outside it for reasons other than strident colours and divisionist technique. La Nana, the dwarf dancer, is a clearly defined personality connecting with us through her aggressive attitude, and markedly different from the figures of the blue period which are largely generalised, posed in melancholy attitudes, their anatomy twisted into the languid rhythms of a mannered style—damp souls haunting a remote world.

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