Lot Essay
Female sexuality has been a constant obsession for Saura throughout his career. As with de Kooning, Saura's images of women often seem grotesque and menacing despite being based on pin-up photos of famous beauties such as Brigitte Bardot. Here eroticism is expressed in its most raw and blatant state.
Saura admired the sexuality behind the pictures of the Spanish Old Masters. "Their obscenity, their obscene beauty, does not come from what they represent but from the general impulse which is behind them. Some of the works of Rubens, El Greco and Goya, as will happen later with Picasso, Pollock and de Kooning, are not obscene just from the elements which make them up, but from the orgiastic, not to say orgasmic sexuality which they contain and which they transmit to the observer..." (As quoted in: Francisco Calvo Serraller, Antonio Saura, Milan 1994, p. 32).
This is the secret behind the powerful presence of Ulrika.
Saura admired the sexuality behind the pictures of the Spanish Old Masters. "Their obscenity, their obscene beauty, does not come from what they represent but from the general impulse which is behind them. Some of the works of Rubens, El Greco and Goya, as will happen later with Picasso, Pollock and de Kooning, are not obscene just from the elements which make them up, but from the orgiastic, not to say orgasmic sexuality which they contain and which they transmit to the observer..." (As quoted in: Francisco Calvo Serraller, Antonio Saura, Milan 1994, p. 32).
This is the secret behind the powerful presence of Ulrika.