Picasso’s Three Musicians, with a French horn

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Another tweaked classic.

The recent sweep of modern music at the Grammy awards in the classical music category inspired this “twisted classic.”

Three Musicians (1921) features standard characters from Italian commedia dell-arte (comic theater) including a masked Pierrot and Harlequin. It exemplifies Pablo Picasso‘s “synthetic” cubist style – where flat areas of color resemble collages made of construction paper cut-outs.

It was created shortly after an artistic collaboration between Picasso and composer Igor Stravinsky during the ballet production of Pulcinella (another commedia dell-arte character).

In this particular rendition high humor takes a turn for the low as the Pierrot decides to put down his clarinet in favor of a preferred instrument.

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