Picasso.

Son of a drawing instructor, Picasso learned the secrets of this technique early on and, before long, had mastered it perfectly. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to La Coru�a, where Picasso studies brilliantly at the Fine Arts School. By the time he arrived in Barcelona (1895), Picasso already drew exceptionally well and was a good painter. Within the cultural atmosphere at this city, he found the platform he needed to keep going and his art and his creativity found the definitive style they needed. The factors that helped him do so were many and varied: his classes at La Ljotja, where he heard about El Greco, symbolists and all sorts of artists and tendencies, round tables at Els Quatre Gats, where there were heavy discussions on all the era's "isms" and where he held his first public exhibition. This was also where he met many artists who were up on the latest trends in art: Mir, Nonell, Gonzalez, Gargallo and Manolo Torres Garcia. Barcelona was also the city in which he made close friends, such as Casagemas, Sabartes, Vidal Ventosa and Soto. A clear example of Picasso's ties to Barcelona was the creation of his own museum, which was suggested by Picasso himself. He contributed to enriching the museum's collections through different donations. The museum itself was founded with collections donated by Sabartes, who was Picasso's friend and personal secretary. In 1900, he went to Paris with his friend Casagemas, and they took the studio recently vacated by another Catalonian painter, Isidre Nonell. There he became familiar with impressionist works. He was surrounded by difficulty, and the suicide of his friend Casagemas had a profound impact on the young Picasso. Under these circumstances, he began the works of his so-called "blue period", which he would fully develop upon his return to Barcelona in 1903-1904. Once he definitively settled in Paris, he began his "rose period", in which the sadness and misery of his blue period was substituted for the more lively world of theater and circus. In 1906, he returned to Catalonia, to G�sol, where he stayed for three months. Here his works seemed to be imbued with the colors of Mediterranean landscapes, and he began the cubist approach he would later develop in Paris. He was again refreshed by a stay in Horta d'Ebre (Catalonia, 1909) and Cadaqu�os (1910). Around 1913, Picasso began to include collages in his cubist works and became enthused by this new technique, which allowed him to give his work new textures. Three years later, he began a new experience in his creative process by participating in Serge Diaghilev's Russian Ballet, which opened in Barcelona in 1917 for an extended stay. This contact with the theather world, as well as a trip to Italy, brought him back to figurative painting with a new interest in characters from the Italian comedy. He alternated this interest with his investigation into cubism. During the 20's, he made different contacts with the surrealists. The culmination of this contact was a cover he did for the magazine Minotaure. The minotaur, which had already made an appearance in his production, became a prevalent subject and, together with bullfighting, became the subject of many of his works. During the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), the artist took the side of the Spanish Republic, which appointed him director of the Prado Museum. His indignation at the brutal bombing of Guernica insipired the large mural (1937) he painted in honor of the city. During the 40s, he began to make ceramics, which later turned to an interest in sculpture from scraps, which he began making in the 50's. Pablo Picasso continued producing all types of works using all types of bases and techniques. His incessant creativity characterized him, making him one of the great geniuses of our time.