Man and woman in café 1903

Picasso painted this melancholic scene of a man and woman in a cafe, most likely in Paris, with oils on canvas. The predominant blues, mauves, and whites are built up through layers of visible brushstrokes. You can almost imagine him, can’t you? Hunched over, mixing this color, then that. I wonder what Picasso was thinking about when he made this work. Was he thinking of the world around him or an interior world? Is he showing us something about love, or something about the loneliness of modern life? The paint is applied so thickly, especially on their faces, that it almost feels like sculpture. The brushstrokes around the carafe and glass are much looser, gestural. It makes you think about other artists like Van Gogh and Cezanne who explored interiority, psychological space, and the everyday. Artists are always in conversation with each other. They don't exist in a vacuum. And that's what makes art so exciting, isn't it?