The Tragedy: Pablo Picasso (1903)

The Tragedy is a 1903 painting by Pablo Picasso from his Post-Impressionist Blue Period, which shows three figures, a man, woman, and child huddled together on a beach. Their downcast looks speak of the tragic but it isn’t clear if they are subject to it or mourning it. The entire piece is made up of blues and dark greens and the only brightness, if you could call it that, comes from the cold skin tones from the faces, hands, and feet of the three figures. It is possible that this is a family who is mourning somebody close to them, possibly a sibling of the child.

Picasso’s Blue period, between 1901 and 1904, contained a series of almost monochromatic paintings of blue and blue-green colors, all of which have a somber theme to them, all of which depicted people.

Pablo Picasso’s The Tragedy is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, United States.