Three Musicians (1921) is a work by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain in October of 1881 as the first child in his family. He studied with his father, who was an artist and attended the Academy of Arts for a short period of time before moving to Paris in 1901 to practice new and different art forms.

This artwork is an oil canvas painting called Three Musicians; it shows what Picasso depicts as three musicians each playing a different instrument. The interesting thing about the musicians is that they each seem to be portrayed by a bunch of geometric shapes combined. They each seem to have some type of beard or mustache which tells me that they must be men. The one on the left seems to be playing a flute while wearing white, black, and blue colors. The one in the middle is playing a guitar and is different from the other two because he is wearing a bright orange and beige color suit. The one of the right is playing what seems to be an accordion with music notes on it while wearing mostly black.

This work reflects the aesthetic preferences associated with modernism because it shows an ordinary activity depicted as something more complex. The geometric shapes and slanted lines embrace artifice and reject narrative. The shape of the instruments also fit into the modernism period because they are distorted in a way that makes you look twice at them before knowing which instruments they are. I think that Picasso painted this to show that not everything is the way that it seems. If there was just a painting of three normally proportioned musicians with instruments there wouldn’t be any mystery or questions brought up if an audience were to look at it. The colors and the slanted lines and shapes really fit into the category of modernism since the painting flaunts difficulty and makes you want to take a closer look.

I was drawn to this piece while walking through the MOMA because from far away I saw that there were people in the painting playing instruments and having a background in violin and piano myself, I was interested in taking a closer look at it. I feel as if I can understand the painting on a musical level as well, since playing an instrument is much more different than just watching someone play an instrument. The one thing I am wondering about this painting is why Picasso decided to emphasize the musician in the middle with bright colors and different shapes than the two other musicians on the side. I want to know what made him choose those specific colors and shapes in order to make the one in the middle stand out.