Picasso's Blue Period was done in hot, bright hues. The painting considered the first of his Blue Period, "Casagemas in His Coffin", was completed later in 1901 when Picasso was sinking into a major depression. Picasso, normally an outgoing socializer, withdrew from his friends. Picasso's bout of depression was to last several years. Picasso's career had been promising before 1901 and early in that year he was making "a splash" in Paris. However, as he moved towards subject matter such as society's poor and outcast, and accented this with a cool, anguished mood with blue hues, the critics and the public turned away
Pietrafesa (painter) Pietrafesa (painter) Giovanni De Gregorio, known as il Pietrafesa (1579 or 1580 in Pietrafesa (now Satriano di Lucania) - 1656 in Pignola, active 1653) called thus after the ancient name of the place of origin, Satriano, the ancient Pietrafesa. Giovanni De Gregorio, or Pietrafesa, was a Lucan painter. Active in the Kingdom of Naples between 1608 and 1653, he was a representative of the Neapolitan school. He was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He painted an altar-piece of the "Assumption of the Virgin Mary" for the chapel of the convent of Marsico Nuovo. De Gregorio was born in