Palace of Arts, Barcelona 1903

Picasso made this small oil painting of the Palace of Arts in Barcelona sometime early in his career. You can see his immediate, energetic approach in the loose brushwork and bold color choices; he’s unafraid to let the process show, to leave the marks visible. Look at the roof of the Palace, a vibrant, almost angry red which dominates the composition, and how it contrasts against the cool blues and greens of the sky and surrounding landscape. The paint is applied thinly in some areas, allowing the texture of the canvas to peek through, and more thickly in others, creating a sense of depth and movement. The visible brushstrokes give the painting a lively, dynamic quality, as if the scene is still unfolding before our eyes. There's something almost Fauvist in the color and handling of paint, I'm thinking of someone like Derain, and you can see Picasso testing out an expressive approach to landscape painting here, before he went on to his Rose Period and beyond. Ultimately, this work reminds us that art is always in conversation with itself, each artist building upon the ideas and techniques of those who came before.