Picasso's Portraiture; Transformation

Pablo Picasso, who is celebrated as perhaps to be the greatest artist of the 20^th century, sought to find various ways how to represent the human face. He created most of his portraiture by arranging shapes and colours. The transformation found in his portraits through the latest half of the 20^th century is impeccable. Most of them are intimate posters representing relatives, friends, fellow workers and his passion to the women he loved.

Image 1

He represented the same sitter in various styles ranging from African art to Cubism to Surrealism. Starting from his earliest works in 1905, when he painted ‘The portrait of Gertrude Stein’ ( Image 1) . Their friendship was of a great importance to him. This classical portrait shows Gertrude sitting in a brown velvet blouse in a dark, strange setting. She posed for this portrait for about 90 times in the same position and it is also known that he had her head repainted for 3 times. Looking at the head and the rest of the body separately, one can see that the head is very contrasting, using masses of colour where the facial features are very expressive (jaw lines). Her face looks like a mask; this work can be seen as an inspiration to his later works in the Cubist style.

Image 2

Moving on to Picasso’s love life, the Russian ballerina Olga was his first wife and she full filled his works from 1917 to 1920. The painting ‘Woman in an Armchair’ (1920; Image 2), shows the connection between the Cubist style & Neo-Classical These Neo-Classical paintings were then used for his finished Cubist works. I mostly like the line found in his painting which guides us and also the use of colour palette.

Image 3

When their marriage started deteriorating, her portraits where then more harsh, he even transformed Olga’s head into a skull in the ‘Seated Bather’ (1930; Image 3). Olga represented as an insect with different human and animal forms. In his new relationship with Marie-Therese Walter, he created a twin painting named ‘Bather with beach ball’ (1932; Image 4). The use of colour is less harsh, with a rounder and softer figure, which seems weightless. Although they have the same background, the transformation in the presentation of the figure between one other is huge.

Image 4

In the 1930’s, Picasso exploited sexuality. Most of his erotic paintings include Marie Theresa in them, done in the 1930’s. ‘Girl before a Mirror’ ( Image 5), has to be one of my favourite art pieces by Picasso. It shows a woman holding a mirror within which she is reflected in her dead body. It represents the concerns of the woman depicted with her own inner self. Her body is not portraying beauty, since Picasso wants to show that perception changes everything.

Image 5

When Dora Maar took place in Picasso’s life, he started involving her in his passion to portraiture. He depicted Marie-Therese with a sentimental expression, with her blue eyes dominating her curvy face. Dora’s portraits show a lot of energy and passion, with the use of bold colours and exaggerated face make-up.  Most of Dora’s portraits display a lot of emotion due to the war. He also referred to her as the ‘weeping woman’. The painting ‘Weeping Woman’ (1937; Image 6) shows a lot of pain. Half of her face is in white bones, which the corrosive tears made it reveal.

Personal Comments

Image 6

The transformation found in these 40 years of Picasso’s Portraiture is huge.  Through these portraits, one can read Picasso’s life, his troubles and pleasures expressed in colour on a canvas. In his earliest works he used dark colours, but later paintings became more vivid and bold. The Figures became more abstracted, using simplified forms; geometric and curvy ones. In the 20’s he veiled all of his paintings, but Marie- Therese seemed to be an inspiration to be more sexual and start painting the nudes (1930’s).  Although the Bather’s paintings are said to be twins, in the ‘Seated Bather’ he represented the body with bones, while the other one with balloons. In the ‘Girl before a mirror’, I think that he is trying to show 2 different parts of her, both day-self and night-self, her tranquility and her vitality, showing also the change from an innocent girl to a woman aware of her sexuality. The hand is representing unity, trying to unite the different selves. Moving on to Dora Maar’s portraits which are more conflicting then the others, showing a lot of emotion but he using bold colours.

References

MOMA, 1996. Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation. [online]

Available at: <http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/7424/releases/MOMA_1996_0019_19.pdf?2010> [accessed on 11 December 2012].

Art Net, 2012. The Muses are Women: Picasso at the Museum of Modern Art by Berta Sichel. [online]

Available at: <http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/sichel/sichel5-31-96.asp> [accessed on 11 December 2012].

JSTOR, 2002. In the name of Picasso. [online]

Available at: <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/778371uid=3738632&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101553596817> [accessed on 12 December 2012].

Timothy Hilton, 1976. Picasso. Thames and Hudson, Pgs 220-225.

Images

Image 1:- Picasso, 1905. Portrait of Gertrude Stein. [image online]

Available at: <http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/210008443> [accessed on 11 December 2012].

Image 2:- Picasso, 1920. Woman in an armchair. [image online]

Available at: <http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/pablo-picasso/woman-sitting-in-an-armchair-1920> 
[accessed on 11 December 2012].

Image 3:- Picasso, 1930. Seated Bather. [image online]

Available at: <http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78721> [accessed on  11 December 2012].

Image 4:- Picasso, 1932. Bather with Beach Ball. [image online]
Available at: <http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80262> [accessed on 11 December 2012]

Image 5:- Picasso, 1932. Girl before a mirror. [image online]

Available at: <http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78311>  [accessed on  12 December 2012].

Image 6:-  Picasso, 1937. Weeping Woman. [image online]

Available at: <http://www.inminds.com/weeping-woman-picasso-1937.html> [accessed on 12 December 2012].