This week’s work of art is by Pablo Picsasso, created using pasted paper and charcoal on cardboard in the Spring of 1914. It’s title is Glass and Bottle of Bass. Though it certainly doesn’t look like any bottle of Bass Ale I’ve ever seen.
There’s a biography of Picasso at Wikipedia and also Biography.com. You can also see more of Picasso’s art at Olga’s Gallery, ArtArchive and the ArtCyclopedia. Then there’s Picasso.com and his “official” website.
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This week’s work of art by one of the modern world’s most famous artists, Pablo Picasso. The painting is known as Le Bock (“The Beer”), but it’s real title is “Portrait of Jamie Sarbartes, the Poet.” Picasso painted it in 1901 and today it hangs in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.
The Pablo Picasso Gallery describes the painting like this:
This is sometimes called Le Bock (The Beer) or simply Portrait of Sabartes; but Picasso himself insisted on ‘the poet’ as part of the title. There was a hint of irony in this as a description of Sabartes, and the painting undoubtedly presents him in an exaggeratedly soulful, glamorous light.
According to Sabartes, it was painted not long after his arrival in Paris from Spain (October 1901). He was sitting alone in a tavern, in a state of myopic isolation and boredom, until Picasso and some companions suddenly burst into the room and cheered him up. A few days later, in Picasso’s studio, Sabartes was shown this painting, which he recognized as portraying ‘the spectre of my solitude’. It is arguably the first work of Picasso’s ‘Blue Period’, characterized not only by all-pervasive blue tones but by a preoccupation with suffering, rejection and poverty.
There’s a biography of Picasso at Wikipedia and also Biography.com. You can also see more of Picasso’s art at Olga’s Gallery, ArtArchive and the ArtCyclopedia. Then there’s Picasso.com and his “official” website.
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The UK tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mirror, reported today that a study at the University of Barcelona revealed that “[d]rinking up to a pint of beer a day is good for your health — and can even help you lose weight.” They also “found those who have a Mediterranean-style diet and drink moderately are healthier than those who don’t” and that “beer could cut the risk of high blood pressure.”
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Monday’s ad is for a Spanish brewery, Moritz in Barcelona, which was founded in 1856 and closed in 1978. Remaining family members started up the brand again a few years ago, contracting the brewing. This ad is for Epidor, a strong lager they debuted July 23, 1923. Given the strange face of the man in the ad, I’m not exactly sure who their target audience was or why they thought that would help sell beer. Does it make you want to drink their beer?
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Tuesday’s ad is for a Spanish beer, Moritz. The Barcelona brewery was founded in 1856 and closed in 1978, but remaining family members started up the brand again a few years ago, contracting the brewing. This ad is from the first half of the last century, and I particularly love the laughing elephant with his mug of beer.
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Wednesday’s ad is a contemporary one for Spain’s Estrella Damm. The illustration was apparently done for an Estrella Damm calendar. This work was done by Alex Trochut, a Spanish artist living in Barcelona. There’s a nice biography and short interview with him at It’s Nice That. I love art with a lot of detail, and this one has it in spades. Look closely at the waves and that alone should keep you occupied for some time. To see it larger, and see even more detail, click through the image and then select “all sizes.”
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For more of my past columns, see Brooks On Beer
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