Pablo Picasso

 1. 

2.

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 1907

9. 1937

10. 

Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso. He was named after various saints and relatives. The "Picasso" is actually from his mother, Maria Picasso y Lopez. His father is named Jose Ruiz Blasco.

When a Nazi officer saw Guernica he asked Picasso "Was you who did it?" and Picasso is said to have responded, "No, you did!".

Picasso's iconic shirt is a Breton-striped shirt, which in 1858 became the official uniform for French seamen in Brittany. Picasso was also a leader in fashion, and his Breton striped T-shirt was designed by Coco Chanel. The 21 horizontal stripes represent each of Napoleon's victories.

After ending his first marriage in 1935, Picasso dabbled in poetry and later wrote two surrealist plays. Between 1935 and 1959 Picasso wrote over 300 poems that were mostly untitled except for an occasional date and location of where it was written. It was rumoured that Picasso predicted he'd be known more for his poetry than his paintings.

Picasso was buried in the grounds of a château that he bought on a whim in 1958 in the village of Vauvenargues in the south of France. Picasso is said to have bought the estate after discovering that it lay on the slopes of Mont Sainte-Victoire, which was painted more than 30 times by Paul Cézanne, the Impressionist artist. "I have just bought myself Cézanne's mountains," he told his agent.

With collections and museums dedicated to the artist across the world, Picasso's body of work spans an incredible 76 years and over 150,000 different works. Divided into different artistic phases of his life, including Cubism and the Blue Period, he was incredibly experimental and was constantly evolving as an artist.

At the age of 91, Picasso said at a dinner party in Mougins (a village in the south of France), "Drink to me, drink to my health; you know I can't drink anymore." He died of a heart attack shortly after. Inspired by the artist, Paul McCartney wrote a song named "Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me,)" where the artist's final utterance is the foundation of its chorus.

Picasso’s life, like his art, was filled with animals. His father was a breeder of pigeons and taught his son how to paint them. His love for these birds continued into later life. His drawing Dove of Peace was chosen as the emblem for the first International Peace Conference in 1949. He also named his second daughter ‘Paloma’, which is Spanish for dove.

Dogs feature across Picasso’s work and were constant companions throughout his life too. He owned many breeds over the years, including terriers, poodles, a Boxer, a Great Pyrenees, a German Shepherd and Afghan Hounds. The best known of his pet dogs is Lump the dachshund. The relationship between artist and dog was described as a 'love affair' and Lump appears in a number of Picasso’s paintings. He lived with Picasso until a week before the artist’s death in 1973.

His daughter: Paloma Picasso

Paloma Picasso (19 April 1949) is a French jewelry designer and businesswoman, best known for her collaboration with Tiffany & Co, and her signature perfumes. 

Famous paintings

Can you guess the artist? Which nationality? What era, year was it painted? 

WASSILY KANDINSKY

PAUL GAUGUIN

GUSTAV KLIMT

SALVADOR DALI

EDVARD MUNCH

PAUL CEZANNE

JAN VERMEER

VINCENT van GOGH

SANDRO BOTTICELLI 

JOHN CONSTABLE 

PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR

LEONARDO DA VINCI

CLAUDE MONET

PABLO PICASSO

1.

  

2.

3.

   

4.

5.

  

6.

 

7.

8.

9.

 

10.

11. 

12. 

"

13. 

14. 

 

Now check your answers and read more

1.

CLAUDE MONET  - Impression sunrise - 1872

He was a founder of French impressionist painting. Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. 

1840-1926, French

2.

JAN VERMEER Girl with a pearl earring - 1665

Considered by many to be “the Dutch Mona Lisa” or the “Mona Lisa of the North”, this beautiful painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer features, well… a girl with a pearl earring. The painting was completed around 1665 and is on display in the Mauritshuis Gallery in the Hague, the Netherlands. He specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings.

1632-1675, Dutch

3.

GUSTAV KLIMT   The kiss - 1908

The Kiss is a realistic yet geometric depiction of a kissing couple. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body.He was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.

Where: Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna (Austria)

Oils and golden leaves.

1862-1918, Austrian

4.

SANDRO BOTTICELLI The birth of Venus 1485

He was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. 

1445-1510, Italian

5.

EDVARD MUNCH  The scream - 1893

The Scream exists in four versions: two pastels (1893 and 1895) and two paintings (1893 and 1910). There are also several lithographs of The Scream (1895 and later). It has been widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Munch wrote of how the painting came to be: "I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature."

Where: National Gallery, Oslo

Value: $123 mln. The Scream was once stolen and the thieves left a note "Thanks for the poor security." 

It was painted using oil and pastel on cardboard.

1863-1944, Norwegian

6.

LEONARDO DA VINCI The last supper - 1498

Located on the ceiling of The Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, Rome. The Creation Of Adam was painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512 and it is just one of nine scenes from the book of Genesis that are painted on the center of the ceiling of the chapel.

1452-1519, Italian

7.

PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR Dancing at the Moulin de la Galette - 1876

Value: $143 mln.

1841-1919, French

8.

SALVADOR DALI The persistence of memory - 1930

Where: Museum of Modern Art, New York, the USA

The Persistence of Memory is one of the most recognizable pieces in art history. This work of art is known to make people ponder on their way of life and the way they spend their time, and it is also thought that this wonderful painting was inspired by Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

1904-1989, Spanish

9.

WASSILY KANDINSKY Composition VIII - 1923

He was a Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting one of the first recognised purely abstract works.

1866-1944, Russian

10.

VINCENT van GOGH "Portrait de L’Artiste Sans Barbe",  1889

This painting by Van Gogh is an interesting piece because it shows the artist without his beard. It is also one of the few paintings sold by Van Gogh, and it fetched a whopping $71.5 million in 1998, making it one of his most expensive paintings ever sold.

1853-1890, Dutch

11. 

PABLO PICASSO "The Portrait of Dora Maar", 1937

Pablo Picasso is one of the most accomplished Spanish painter, and his skill is most evident in this painting. He is the founder of a style called Cubism that shows the same picture from different angles. This picture is about a woman’s face, believed to that of Picasso’s lover, shown from different angles, thereby marking the first of many paintings in cubism style.

1881-1973, Spanish

12. 

JOHN CONSTABLE "The Hay Wain", 1821

Oil on canvas. 

He was an English Romantic painter. Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, Constable was never financially successful. "The Hay Wain"  hangs in the National Gallery in London and is regarded as "Constable's most famous image" and one of the greatest and most popular English paintings.

1776-1837, English

13. 

PAUL GAUGUIN"Two Tahitian Women", 1899

He was a French post-Impressionist artist. Gauguin's art became popular after his death. 

1848-1903, French

14. 

PAUL CEZANNE "The Basket of Apples", circa 1893

Cezanne is considered the greatest master of still life painting and this is one of his most important works in the genre. It is also noted for the beautifully painted unbalanced parts and the fruits which are about to fall from the table.

1839-1906, French

Simon Sinek

 Video: Millennials

Poetry

 Video: Marshall Jones at Poetry Slam

Wake up! 

John Keats:  "To Autumn"

Relative Clauses

 In English language there are 7 types of clauses, relative clauses are amongst them. (relative clause = relatiivlause e. kõrvallause, mis enamasti laiendab pealause nimisõnafraasi.)

A relative clause gives additional information about a noun, a pronoun or a verb. They contain relative pronouns:

 who (whom) = PEOPLE

which = THINGS

whose = POSSESSIONS

when = TIME

where = PLACE

what = VERBS 

that = PEOPLE or THINGS (it's a relative adverb) 

Words who / which /that can be omitted if they act as objects. Don't use commas in relative clauses, but you have to use them in non-relative / non-defining sentences.  In formal language WHOM is often used instead of who or who to

Examples

1) This the man who helped me in the accident. (the man = subject, therefore the pronoun who can't be omitted. It is a relative clause => no commas needed. )

2) The car (that) I bought last year broke down. ( the car = object, therefore the pronoun that can be omitted.)

3) The house, whose roof was damaged, is being repaired. (the house = subject, therefore the pronoun can't be omitted. It's a non-defining relative clause => commas are needed.)

PS! subject - alus, object - sihitis

The easiest way to check whether a sentence is a non-defining relative clause => read the sentence without clause and a non-defining clause makes another independent sentence. 

_____________________________

How to change formal sentences into less formal? Which relative pronoun is more formal:  which or that, who / that, whom / who to?

1) The car in which we drove to London belongs to my mum.

2) This is the address to which you should write. 

3) The exam about which I'm worried is on Monday. 

4) Chris is the friend with whom I went to Italy.

5) The man about whom I told you is over there. 

6) Who is the girl to whom you were talking?

Gadgets

 GADGETS

Bluetooth headset / VR headset

(Bluetooth) smartspeaker / wireless speaker

camcoder

digital radio

games console

memory stick

SatNav

smartphone

smartwatch

tablet

digital / action camera

e-book reader

Blu-ray player

digital photo frame

hard disk / hard drive recorder

solar-powered battery charger

drone

wearable fitness tracker

home assistant hub

webcam

Describing gadgets

convenient, expensive, out-of-date, 

inexpensive, efficient, fragile, durable, 

reliable, useful, modern, nifty, futuristic, 

novel, improved, advanced, innumerable, 

handy, portable, wireless, complicated, 

user-friendly,  compact, versatile, 

visually appealing, 

1) Which adjectives are about AGE?

2) .... usage or functions?

3) .... price or cost?

4) ...appearance?

5) ....positive?

6) .... negative?

IT-technology

 Click here: Computer words

Was it too easy? Click here: Computer words 2

And  this one (for true IT geeks): Computer words 3

Social media vocabulary: liveworksheets

Social media: matching

Social media: pros and cons

Tech support: conversation and grammar questions