Pablo Picasso, "Child with a Dove."

One of Picasso's first paintings during the Blue Period was called "Child with a Dove." Picasso's father loved pets and had many of them. Picasso grew up with these pets and doves seemed to be one of Picasso's favorite birds. The flat expanses of color and emphatic contours are reminiscent of the cloisonnism of Gauguin and the Nabis painters. The rather somber tonalities and wistful, contemplative mood of a child holding a dove prefigure works of the Blue Period.

"Child of a Dove" shows Picasso's tenderness and innocents of his childhood through the image of a young girl holding a dove. Here the girl is holding a dove to her chest with a colorful ball at the bottom of the picture. The gentle way the young girl is holding the dove and the expression of peace and calm on her face gives us a small insight as to what is happening in this picture. Picasso loved to paint children and he felt their eyes could see things different than adults. Also, Picasso felt a child's world was made up of fantasy and reality. A dove is the world wide symbol for peace and perhaps Picasso felt by painting the young girl and the dove together, that would help the future of the world.