The subject is the time-honored artistic theme of girl with a mandolin.  There are many masterpieces represent characters and musical instruments, and the realistic paintings combined portrait painting and still life painting, such as: The Lute Player (1596) by Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610)  ; Woman with a Lute (1662-1664) by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) ; Girl with a mandolin (1758-1760) by Venetian art master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770).

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) made Girl with a Mandolin in 1910, and the painting is one of the first examples of what is know today as an Analytic Cubist painting. Georges Braque (1882-1963)  also used the artistic theme of woman with a mandolin to made some important cubist paintings in 1910. Cubism overthrew the artistic tradition of the nineteenth century and before, and created a new artistic tradition. 

Li Liu innovatively used ballpiont pen as the medium. Artist chose this classic artistic theme of girl with a mandolin and painted this artwork in cubism style to pay tribute to Girl with a mandolin made by Picasso in 1910. There is a girl with light blue hair and tied it neatly with pink hair accessories in the center of the painting. The girl is wearing a lilac top and playing a mandolin. The girl’s eye stared down while she is playing the mandolin, not consciously eyes redness that reveals sentimental moment. The girl’s lilac clothes is composed of many geometric cubes, and the background of the painting is also composed of many colorful geometric cubes, which are decorated with patterns. The colors on the geometric cubes are bright and colorful, and match and interact with each other. LiLY H Art Gallery is pleased to present this painting by Li Liu.