| Summary: | Pablo Picasso drew inspiration from diverse artistic traditions. This thesis argues that the medieval art and heritage of Catalonia was among his earliest influences and that it proved instrumental to Picasso's development of that revolutionary approach to painting, known as Cubism. The topic has amazingly received little attention over the past decades and this thesis is an attempt to fill the glaring gap in Picasso scholarship. My work combines formal analysis with an investigation of the broader cultural context in which Picasso was operating in order to demonstrate how the young artist was influenced by the figurative and stylistic execution of Catalan medieval art. Although the Blue Period (1901-1904) is the focus of the thesis, because it constituted Picassos first major moment of impact with medieval art, I trace the progression of Picassos relationship with medieval imagery throughout his early career, from subtle references in the 1890s to more direct appropriation between 1902 and the dawn of Cubism 1907.
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