Join curator Megan Fontanella as she unveils details of this painting.

Transcript
Megan Fontanella: This lively painting "Fourteenth of July" from 1901 captures the French national holiday that commemorates the fall of the Bastille amidst social unrest in 1789.

Here in Picasso’s painting, the dizzying crowd presses forward and is largely composed of featureless blurs of color. And yet, hints of individuality and expressiveness emerge. For instance, the figure in a white shirt, at bottom left, has a brooding appearance. The exposed, midtoned-brown cardboard support, which has darkened over time, contributes to the tones of the composition.

The palette also contains much red, white, and blue, appropriate for this patriotic subject, punctuated with green and bright splashes of yellow. Picasso contrasts the jubilation of the national holiday with the melancholy of the sustained marginalization and poverty he witnessed in the city.

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