.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Reflecting on the theme of the artist's studio in the late 1920s, Picasso became particularly interested in the depcition of the rapport between the painter and his model, a subject he would explore in different techniques, media, shapes and sizes throughout his career. He often chose the same structure: the artist - his alter ego - facing the nude model, the two separated by the easel. The elements are limited, the message is straightforward, yet Picasso managed to render each interpretation of the theme in a different way. The artist's curiosity, admiration, pride and self-security are met by the serene posture and easiness of the nude on the other side of the easel.
The posture of the woman in present work is indebted to the classical type of the odalisque, borrowed directly from Titian and Ingres. Picasso cast the bare, pure body of the model, wearing nothing but a bracelet, against a background of expressive, dense and energetic hatching. The light colour of her body stands out against the figure of the painter, which is much darker, and, of course, clothed. Picasso portrays himself as a voyeur, and, interestingly, puts the viewer in the same position.
Nudes are a recurrent theme in Picasso's oeuvre, and the subject of 'painter and model' is a more complex rendering of the same. The artist himself said of the nudes: 'What am I seeking [...] in the word which says 'nude' on my painting, with a single stroke, without beating about the bush. I want to do the nude just as it is... It should happen all by itself!... I myself don't want to do the nude. I wish that one couldn't do otherwise than see the nude as it is... There's a moment, if one succeeds in doing what one wants to, when the breasts take their place by themselves without one's having to draw them' (Picasso quoted in exh. cat., Picasso - Works from 1932-1965, Galerie Beyeler, 1967).
The posture of the woman in present work is indebted to the classical type of the odalisque, borrowed directly from Titian and Ingres. Picasso cast the bare, pure body of the model, wearing nothing but a bracelet, against a background of expressive, dense and energetic hatching. The light colour of her body stands out against the figure of the painter, which is much darker, and, of course, clothed. Picasso portrays himself as a voyeur, and, interestingly, puts the viewer in the same position.
Nudes are a recurrent theme in Picasso's oeuvre, and the subject of 'painter and model' is a more complex rendering of the same. The artist himself said of the nudes: 'What am I seeking [...] in the word which says 'nude' on my painting, with a single stroke, without beating about the bush. I want to do the nude just as it is... It should happen all by itself!... I myself don't want to do the nude. I wish that one couldn't do otherwise than see the nude as it is... There's a moment, if one succeeds in doing what one wants to, when the breasts take their place by themselves without one's having to draw them' (Picasso quoted in exh. cat., Picasso - Works from 1932-1965, Galerie Beyeler, 1967).