Hear-"The Old Guitarist" by Pablo Picasso (1903)

Hearing

Pablo Picasso, a passionate Spanish artist, created the famous painting, The Old Guitarist, in Madrid in1903. The Old Guitarist is an example of the Symbolist Movement, which was a literary and artistic movement sparked by French Poets during the 19^th century (The Old Guitarist). Symbolist’s artists’ intentions were to express the individual emotional experience. Picasso completed The Old Guitarist directly after one of his friends, Casagemas, committed suicide. The distorted figure of the man’s body represents the less fortunate who endure hardships like his friend, Casagemas, and himself as he struggled through poverty in 1902 (The Old Guitarist). The guitar seems important to the elderly, weak man in the painting as he holds his guitar close to him, playing softly. During the symbolist movement, blind characters were believed to have been given powers of inner vision by a higher power (The Old Guitarist). The old man seems to be intensely, inwardly satisfied with music, which makes him oblivious to the world around him. As long as he can listen to the music he plays, he is at peace. The focus of the painting is centered on the guitar as the guitar serves as the center of the man’s life and escape from reality.

            We perceive life and everything around us through each of the 5 senses. This is how they play a strong, effective role in our lives. The sense to hear is one of the essential senses God gave man. The ability to hear has determined and affected our human experience today since the beginning of time. It permits us to understand thus communicate with one another. As a human race, we hear and listen to one another and that is how we survive and progress in this world. If we weren’t given the privilege to hear by God, we would be deprived of the beauty and importance that hearing brings. A beautiful form of noise that people enjoy to hear is music. The deep feeling reflected in the painting reveals the influence that the ability to hear has on our emotions. To this man, the passion and pain expressed in the man’s face seems to have caused him to age and become lifeless. The inhumane body structure of the man emphasizes the great importance of his music because it shows that even with his deformity he continues to play. The old man’s way out is to play his guitar and listen. The sensation he receives from the music appears to relieve him from his troubles. His music serves him in a way of pleasure and need. Music has become a main component of entertainment for mankind because it provokes different emotions like happiness, sadness, inspiration, etc. In the painting, the elderly man depends on his music, listening intently because the resulting emotions help him to survive. It almost feels like if this man did not have his guitar, he would be deprived of beauty, and would have no purpose in living.