''Three Musicians'', also known as ''Musicians with Masks'' or ''Musicians in Masks'', is a large

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...

created by Spanish artist

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is ...

. He painted two versions of ''Three Musicians''. Both versions were completed in the summer of

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in Brazil. ** The Spanish liner ''Santa Isabel'' breaks ...

Fontainebleau Fontainebleau (; ) is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the ''arrondissement ...

near

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, in the garage of a villa that Picasso was using as his studio. They exemplify the Synthetic Cubist style; the flat planes of color and "intricate puzzle-like composition" giving the appearance of cutout paper with which the style originated. These paintings each colorfully represent three figures wearing masks. The two figures in the center and left are wearing the costumes of

Pierrot Pierrot ( , , ) is a stock character of pantomime and ''commedia dell'arte'', whose origins are in the late seventeenth-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The name is a diminutive of ''P ...

and

Harlequin Harlequin (; it, Arlecchino ; lmo, Arlechin, Bergamasque pronunciation ) is the best-known of the '' zanni'' or comic servant characters from the Italian ''commedia dell'arte'', associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditionall ...

from the popular Italian theater

Commedia dell'arte (; ; ) was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as , , and . Charac ...

, and the figure on the right is dressed as a

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

. In one version, there also is a dog underneath the table. Although both versions share the same subject, the darker version today is more famous than the other. The more famous version is in the permanent collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

(MoMA) in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

and the other version is at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin F ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Description

The Pierrot is believed to represent the poet

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French French poetry, poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish-Belarusian, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered ...

, the Harlequin is believed to represent Picasso, and the monk is believed to represent the poet

Max Jacob Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. Life and career After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...

. Apollinaire and Jacob were close friends of Picasso during the 1910s. However, Apollinaire died from the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case wa ...

on November 9, 1918 and Jacob entered a Benedictine

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whic ...

in the June of 1921.

MoMA version

The setting of this version is a bare, dark brown, boxlike space, where the floor is a lighter brown color than the walls. Unscrambling the jigsaw in this one is quite a challenge. In the space are three figures behind a table. On the table are still-life objects, which Picasso identified as a pipe, a package of

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ch ...

, and a pouch. The figure on the left is the Pierrot, the sad clown from Commedia dell'arte. He has a white pointy hat, a black eye mask, a blue and white body, and white pants. He is playing a gray clarinet. His small brown hands are disproportionate to the rest of his body. The figure in the middle is the Harlequin. He's dressed in a red and yellow diamond pattern and is playing a yellow guitar. The guitar and his body are quite easy to make out. His blue mask is part of a larger shape that covers much of the Pierrot and it's topped off by a black, round hat. The figure on the right is the monk. He wears a black robe and is holding sheet music. He has a square nose with a stringy beard. In this version, Picasso also included a dark brown dog underneath the table but it's mostly hidden. Its tail is seen flicking upward between the Harlequin's legs, its body and one of its rear legs between the Pierrot's legs, and its two front legs on the far left of the floor between the left table leg and the left wall. Not its head, but the shadow of his head, is seen on the back wall.

Philadelphia version differences

* No dog in this painting * Harlequin is playing a violin * Pierrot and Harlequin have changed places * Floor is orange not brown * The sheet music is on the table rather than being held by one of the musicians

History

Picasso worked on both versions simultaneously. At the same time, he also painted '' Three Women at the Spring''. At the end of summer 1921, the canvases were untacked from the garage walls, rolled up, and transported. One version was acquired by Paul Rosenberg. The other was acquired by

Albert Eugene Gallatin Albert Eugene Gallatin (July 23, 1881 – June 15, 1952) was an American artist. He wrote about, collected, exhibited, and created works of art. Called "one of the great figures in early 20th-century American culture," he was a leading proponent ...

. In 1949, Paul Rosenberg sold his painting to the Museum of Modern Art. In 2023, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art reunited the two versions with two versions of ''Three Women at the Spring'' which were created at the same time.

Notes

In the

Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, an ...

episode ''

Mom and Pop Art "Mom and Pop Art" is the nineteenth episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It was first aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 11, 1999. In this episode, Homer inadvertently becomes ...

'', Homer has a dream where the ''Three Musicians'' turn their instruments into guns and shoot at Homer.Meyer, George. (2007). Commentary for "Mom and Pop Art", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Tenth Season'' VD 20th Century Fox.

References

External links

* * {{Use dmy dates, date=November 2020 1921 paintings Cubist paintings Masked musicians Musical instruments in art Paintings by Pablo Picasso Paintings in the Museum of Modern Art (New York City)