Life of Picasso: The representation of physical exercise in Picasso's work.

Pablo Picasso never practiced a particular sporting activity on a constant basis. However, the broad representation of physical exercise and play in his works allows us to study his art from this specific perspective.

The body and movement are present in the Malaga-born artist's work from his childhood in his hometown to his last days in France. Thanks to this extensive representation, through his work it is possible to trace the birth and evolution of contemporary sport with the emergence of the mass sports phenomenon of physical activities such as soccer.

In his beginnings in Malaga, some of his works such as El Picador (1889-1890) and Algunos Croquis (1891) already reveal sporting practices such as bullfighting and fencing, respectively.

Later, in Barcelona, he came into contact with the cultural elite of the city who used to meet at the Els Quatre Gats brewery and came into contact with the sports they practiced. Picasso felt no desire to take part in these exercises, but he did find their artistic representation attractive. An example of this is the work Ramón Casas and Pere Romeu in a tandem (1897), which ended up decorating one of the main walls of his meeting place.

From then on, Picasso became familiar with this theme and amplified it. Among the sports that seduced his work are boxing in The Boxer (1900), Bowling (1903-1904), the pirouettes of The Acrobat (1930), or swimming, which he depicts in La nageuse (1934) and dance in The Dance (1956), among many others.

The only time the artist depicted himself in sportswear was in Self-Portrait (n.d.), where he drew himself with bicycle riding pants, but everything seems to indicate that it was fashionable.

Source:

Junta de Andalucía: Aproximación a la obra de Picasso a través de la representación del ejercicio físico. De Málaga a Guernica