The Punch Line

The Punch Line

“A harlequin, a Pierrot and a monk go into a bar and start playing music…oh and there’s a dog under the table.” The professor explained.

“What’s the punch line?” I asked.

Not amused by my question, she went on to explain Pablo Picasso’s painting simply was the painter had enjoyed his time playing in the local pubs with his friends Guillaume Apollinaire who was painted as the Pierrot, and the monk was his friend Max Jacobs. The dog just happened to be roaming into the scene at the right time. Picasso painted himself as the harlequin of course.

Of course, he did, I thought to myself. She had moved onto the next photo on her screen, but I was still pondering the meaning behind the strange colorful picture.

It has been years since graduating from college, and yet every time I come across Picasso’s famous painting, I recall my art history professor’s description of the Three Musicians like it was yesterday.

The 1921 painting was a Synthetic Cubism style, and I have to believe that Picasso’s outspoken critical nature created the piece with tongue in cheek hidden meaning. Picasso’s friend Apollinaire had passed away a few years before he had painted this piece. The painted collage of bright cubes carefully placed to create the costume of Pierrot playing a clarinet stands out in white. Jacobs had just entered the monastery and yet he is displayed as already an old timeless monk. The colorful trickster painter portrayed himself in a diamond pattern harlequin suit playing a guitar with his dear friends. Perhaps it was his way of remembering good times in a local bar, safe from World War I and the politics that consumed him.

The artwork was done with great detail to display critical objects like instruments, newspaper, music sheet, and each cubical piece painted precisely to represent a paper collage. Its meaning can be lost in how it makes you feel. Is it a piece the artist made to remember good times, or did it hold a deeper meaning?

Even a century later the painting reminds us to look for the curious things in life. To ask questions and wonder and perhaps find humor and seek what the punch line might be.

Our minds can play tricks on us as we piece together misinformation in today’s world. Reality is not always black and white, which I’m grateful for since we all have our own story. Each of us have our own perception, and we have come to that point based on what we have learned, or experienced, or patterns within our life and environment.

It is difficult to understand why society has become blind to seeing all the pieces of life’s collage. They don’t look to see hidden pieces or ask what they don’t fully understand. And to fully understand they may find their own joy in the bigger picture. It seems there are times when we view life through tunnel vision and lose all sense of common sense and the joyful art in life displayed before us.

Isn’t that the point of cubism though? The painter’s illustration questions what is real and what isn’t. It isn’t a replica of a sculptural, person, or scene as former art portrayed. The shapes force the viewer to look at the colors and shapes and see it as visual language. It expresses freedom from the traditional techniques and fragmented shapes to inspire a new way to view nature and humanity in a vastly changing world.

Such a timeless piece gives us a reality check to not to just look at life in black and white. Or perhaps to reflect and admire the painting… and wonder if Picasso secretly had a punch line.