Access a slow-looking exercise related to this work.

Transcript
Marilee Talkington: This oil painting on cardboard by Pablo Picasso is titled "The Fourteenth of July". Painted in summer 1901, the landscape-oriented work is about a foot and a half tall by two feet wide. The scene depicts a lively celebration of Bastille Day, the national French holiday. Red, white, and blue colors across the painting’s surface are punctuated by other bright colors scattered within a festive crowd.

In the lower-left quadrant, loosely painted figures appear to stand or sit while watching a passing crowd or parade. The faces nearest us are painted simply with dabs of peach or tan paint for the nose, cheeks, and forehead. They are outlined in deep blues, with dashes of paint marking eyes and mouths. Some are without detailed expression, but many in the foreground (nearest the viewer in perspective) have recognizable features and even a certain level of expression. In other words, they have been treated with far more individuality. One figure at the very lower-left corner wearing a white shirt supports their chin upon their fist. Farther back in this section, the figures’ heads are painted more simply, with pink circles outlined in deep ultramarine blue; their shirts and torsos are painted in a variety of colors.

These figures face a crowd of people streaming toward us, situated in the lower-right quadrant of the painting. A diagonal path running through the painting marks the space between the stationary crowd on the left and the moving crowd on the right. The crowd on the right is painted with loose, gestural strokes so that everything seems to hurtle toward us, blending into a visual blur of mostly red and blue tones. At the lower right, a few figures are defined with ghostly blue outlines, not filled in with other colors or details apart from those in the background. Other forms within the crowd are mysterious and difficult to identify. Clusters of red, white, and blue painted in short dashes mark decorations, and what may be a parade float is surrounded by people who seem to dance. While many objects in the crowd are undefined or elusive, the strong sense of movement comes through.

Above the crowds, filling the lower half of the painting and near-left center, is a flagpole adorned with French flags and a wreath. Beyond, patches of green paint evoke hills across the background of the painting. At the upper right, above the moving crowd, geometric white forms designate buildings with dark blue windows. Across the top of the painting, a bright white sky blends with hints of blue.

Across the entire painting, color explodes like firecrackers. A wide variety of blue tones are scattered across the composition, while the red tones are mostly a bright coral hue. The painting’s surface is also punctuated with whites, greens, and yellows, including a vibrant patch of canary yellow and another in tangerine. These scattered colors break up and balance the composition.

The paint is applied thickly and loosely, directly onto the brown cardboard base. Because there’s no ground layer, the brown background (which has darkened slightly over time) shows through between the different areas of color, sitting beside each other like tiles with grout between them. Thus, the lighter colors visually float closer to us, including the bright white sky seeming to push toward us starkly.

at guggenheim.org/audio

Pablo Picasso, "The Fourteenth of July (Le quatorze juillet)," Paris, 1901. Oil on cardboard, 18 7/8 × 24 3/4 in. (48 × 62.9 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 1978, 78.2514.36. © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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