In this artwork, how is the Background discussed?
Picasso produced Brick Factory at Tortosa in the summer of 1909, when he was aged 28. It was created while he was on holiday at Horta de Sant Joan in Catalonia, Spain from Paris. The painting displays Picasso's developing style towards Cubism, which would eventually become fully formed in 1910 with paintings like Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler.The painting was one of several that Picasso produced in Southern Spain during this year, including The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro, The Oil Mill, and Paysage, Horta de Ebro, landscapes that display the same simplified geometric style.Horta de Sant Joan played an important role in Picasso's development as an artist. He stayed in the village twice, once as a teenager in 1898 with his friend and fellow art student, Manuel Pallarés, and again from 5 June to September 1909. During his first visit, Picasso had experienced a new sense of freedom, set apart from the artistic restrictions of his father, José Ruiz y Blasco and La Academía de Bellas Artes. Picasso stated, "Everything that I know I have learned in Horta". He returned to Horta in the summer of 1909, ten years after his first visit. By this point, he had achieved a level of prestige as an artist in Paris and he was visiting with his girlfriend Fernande Olivier. This visit inspired Picasso to produce paintings dominated by landscapes depicted in a geometric style. It was a period in which he rediscovered himself as an artist and developed an experimental new style that would eventually lead to Cubism. He left the village at the beginning of September 1909 and never returned.
Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler Tortosa Cubism Horta de Sant Joan José Ruiz y Blasco Fernande Olivier