Currently on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, this is an early work of the Spanish master Picasso. Following the suicide of his close friend, Picasso fell into a depressive state which began his “Blue Period”, when his paintings primarily featured flat blues, greys and blacks and melancholic, downtrodden subjects. In this painting he depicts a blind, sickly old beggar with ripped clothes slouched over a guitar playing it while homeless on the streets of Barcelona.