A Friend's Death and the Start of the Blue Period

A man with closed eyes, a candle blazing behind him. The man in The Death of Casagemas is Casagemas, a painter friend Picasso made back in his early days in Spain. What happened between them to inspire this painting?

They met in Barcelona in 1899. Casagemas came from a well-off middle-class family, was talented, and was already exhibiting with a group of fellow painters. Picasso had just walked out of his tedious art school classes in Madrid and arrived in Barcelona full of drive. The two hit it off, moved in together, and became best friends who painted and talked art. Their regular haunt was a tavern called Els Quatre Gats, a gathering place for artists, where they talked politics, debated art and drank. There they heard plenty about Paris. Many Spanish painters had gone there by then, and those who came back brought stories. The dream became real when Picasso got the chance to show his first painting at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. That work, Last Moments, no longer survives. Still, it was enough to send the two friends to Paris in the autumn of 1900.

Settling in Montmartre, they soaked up the city's glittering nightlife and met other Spanish artists. Then Casagemas fell in love with Germaine, a dancer at the Moulin Rouge. He declared his love at once and pressed his case, but she found his fixation overwhelming and kept her distance. Crushed by the rejection, he drank heavily. Picasso, watching him, could not stand by, and before things got worse he took his friend back to Barcelona on Christmas Day 1900. They saw in the new year in Spain, but Casagemas did not improve; he kept talking about Germaine and kept drinking. In 1901 he announced, "I have to see Germaine," and went back to Paris, while Picasso went to Madrid. That was where they parted.

Germaine's attitude hadn't changed. On February 17, 1901, in a café with four friends and Germaine, Casagemas pleaded for her love once more. When she got up to leave, he drew a pistol and fired at her. The bullet narrowly missed. He then turned the gun on himself and took his own life. He was a young artist barely past twenty, and his death was sudden and bleak.

Hearing the news in Madrid, Picasso was stunned, and began to paint Casagemas from memory. The works convey deep depression, the void left by a friend, despair and guilt. The ones shown here are only a selection; there are many more. Some say there was a flirtation between Picasso and Germaine, and that he felt even guiltier toward Casagemas because of it. Reportedly it never grew into anything deeper and fizzled out, leaving the two as friends.

Casagemas's death did more than shock Picasso emotionally. It changed his art. Picasso's career is usually divided into periods according to muses, models and style, and the first is the Blue Period, named for his heavy use of blue. It is generally said to begin right after Casagemas's death. In the grip of deep depression, Picasso painted many works dominated by blue, black and indigo. We'll come back to the Blue Period in more detail later.