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拍品專文
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In later years, most of Picasso's portraits are of women, and usually depict the woman (or women) in his life at the time. Picasso had been married to his wife Olga (née Khokhlova) since 1918, and their son Paulo was born in 1921, but the artist's feelings had cooled for her by 1923. Picasso formed a relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter, a girl still in her teens, perhaps as early as 1925 but no later than 1927. The artist's paintings from this period reflect his growing estrangement from his family. In some paintings Olga is clearly an angry and menacing presence. Some portraits contain coded references to Marie-Thérèse, while others such as the present work which appear to have two faces, mingle elements of both wife and mistress.
Portraits such as Femme assise are intriguing for the psychological weight they carry, as well as for the extremely reductionist stylization of the painter's imagery. In the mid-1920s Picasso became friendly with André Breton, the prime mover of the Surrealist movement in Paris who tried desperately to woo the world's most famous living artist into the Surrealist camp. Picasso participated in their events and was responsive to their message of intellectual and spiritual regeneration, however it was clear that Picasso's brand of Surrealism differed from that of its followers. Regarding the early days of the movement, Dawn Ayres has noted: "The term surréaliste had been invented in 1917 by the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, champion of cubism, friend of Picasso and Max Jacob, Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia, and Giorgio de Chirico...the term had no very precise meaning; it was coined as a possibly mocking analogy to Nietzsche's superhomme [superman], to indicate a mode distinct from realism, naturalism or classicism, and with a strong element of shock and surprise" .
While the Surrealists strongly believed in the strength of the group, Picasso had already experimented with collective ventures--namely his collaboration with Georges Braque and their resulting Cubist works. Whereas the Surrealists were extremely outspoken about their views, publishing manifestos and other publications regularly, Picasso's work with Braque was quiet and intimate.
Despite his reluctance to become an active participant in the movement, the new possibilities inherent to Surrealism offered Picasso a means of rejuvenating his cubist painting and neoclassical subject matter. The seated woman or monumental figures in a landscape became evocative of the violent, psychological themes of the Surrealists. The fluid Surrealist line and potent concentrated imagery of the present work, set against a flat schematic space derived from cubism, kept Picasso at the forefront of the avant-garde.
In later years, most of Picasso's portraits are of women, and usually depict the woman (or women) in his life at the time. Picasso had been married to his wife Olga (née Khokhlova) since 1918, and their son Paulo was born in 1921, but the artist's feelings had cooled for her by 1923. Picasso formed a relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter, a girl still in her teens, perhaps as early as 1925 but no later than 1927. The artist's paintings from this period reflect his growing estrangement from his family. In some paintings Olga is clearly an angry and menacing presence. Some portraits contain coded references to Marie-Thérèse, while others such as the present work which appear to have two faces, mingle elements of both wife and mistress.
Portraits such as Femme assise are intriguing for the psychological weight they carry, as well as for the extremely reductionist stylization of the painter's imagery. In the mid-1920s Picasso became friendly with André Breton, the prime mover of the Surrealist movement in Paris who tried desperately to woo the world's most famous living artist into the Surrealist camp. Picasso participated in their events and was responsive to their message of intellectual and spiritual regeneration, however it was clear that Picasso's brand of Surrealism differed from that of its followers. Regarding the early days of the movement, Dawn Ayres has noted: "The term surréaliste had been invented in 1917 by the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, champion of cubism, friend of Picasso and Max Jacob, Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia, and Giorgio de Chirico...the term had no very precise meaning; it was coined as a possibly mocking analogy to Nietzsche's superhomme [superman], to indicate a mode distinct from realism, naturalism or classicism, and with a strong element of shock and surprise" .
While the Surrealists strongly believed in the strength of the group, Picasso had already experimented with collective ventures--namely his collaboration with Georges Braque and their resulting Cubist works. Whereas the Surrealists were extremely outspoken about their views, publishing manifestos and other publications regularly, Picasso's work with Braque was quiet and intimate.
Despite his reluctance to become an active participant in the movement, the new possibilities inherent to Surrealism offered Picasso a means of rejuvenating his cubist painting and neoclassical subject matter. The seated woman or monumental figures in a landscape became evocative of the violent, psychological themes of the Surrealists. The fluid Surrealist line and potent concentrated imagery of the present work, set against a flat schematic space derived from cubism, kept Picasso at the forefront of the avant-garde.