The Old Guitarist

An old man, with white hair, clenched jaws, sick structure, clenching to his guitar in his weak skinny arms. The strings of the guitar are too faded. I am reading this as an image of a man with passion to make music. He has lost the relevance because of his age, but the passion in him still lurks around him. Maybe that is the last thread he is holding onto. But he has given up on the validation, appreciation or audience. He has no hope left in him. His head down, eyes closed harmonising to himself the music that noone around cares about.

The blue and the grey explains more than The Old Guitarist about how the guitarist was Picasso himself fearin ghis old age to be in that time period. He is not an underdog painter who would be the facade of Cubism yet. But he couldn't let go of the "guitar" in him. And every night this image of dying with no life besides a smoldering passion rob his sleep, he painted this towards the end. The fear of ending as nothing but a man with no roof above his head, no nourishment, and nothing practical not even his art, but just the fire almost extinguishing.

But for a man with a conviction of this sorts what pushed him into the blue. Death by choice, quitting without a second thought by a friend. Where does that leave Picasso? Hustling with a dream, and your partner brutally opts out for good. Loosing a friend and a partner left him in his blue abyss. And another friendship was formed that altered his life for good. Paul Rosenberg.

Although the fire and the tirelessness took him to places, what it must have been for a man to know in his heart that it would turn out for the best, like he is remembering his future, filled with appreciation, decent money, friendship, family, and legacy. But untill it happens, and God knows when, he has to stay afloat. Picasso stayed and achieved because Paul Rosenberg was not Paul Gauguin. Rosenberg had his bets on him. And Picasso became the hand worth playing.