Girl before a Mirror, by Pablo Picasso (1932)
This painting is called Girl before a Mirror by Pablo Picasso. Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Malaga, Spain. At the age of 13, he put out his first artwork with the help of his father. Eventually, Picasso expanded from a painter into a sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer. He is well known for being one of the creators of the art style of cubism. The invention of cubism added to the modernist era as it rejected Renaissance artwork styles, like perspective and illusion. Cubism offered different points of view and light sources which we can see in the painting I chose.
As the title describes, this painting shows a nude girl standing in front of a mirror, revealing her much different-looking reflection. Picasso used a mix of warm and cool tones, mostly rounded shapes for the girl and the mirror, and rigid lines for the background. I believe, that the warm and cool tones separate the girl from her reflection. The girl’s face on one side was painted yellow but when you look at her reflection, that side of her face is a dark purple, you could barely see it. Then there’s also her hair which is light yellow toned, but the reflection of her hair is green. Then when you take a look at the background, we can see that she is standing in light but her reflection stands in front of a dark blue background. I think these opposing colors were intentional as it plays into one of the ideas of modernism, rejecting realism. Art from realism tries to depict real life as it is, but this painting has nothing realistic about it. To a realist, this painting may seem confusing and incoherent because if she is looking at a mirror, why is her reflection not a mirror image of her? Picasso doesn’t want to literally depict what someone would see when they look into a mirror. Instead, he uses the girl’s reflection to symbolize a deeper meaning, another idea of modernism. I believe that this deeper meaning is that no matter how much you try to depict yourself one way, the mirror will always point out the truth or imperfections. I think most people have experienced staring into a mirror and noticing the smallest things about themselves that almost makes it feel like you and your reflection are two different people. Or you start to realize more imperfections about yourself because that’s easy to do when it is just you and the mirror. The girl’s reflection symbolizes all her insecurities that she only seems to see when she looks in the mirror. Her hair is not as vibrant, her face looks dull and expressionless, and her breasts seem uneven. Also, the girl in the image is looking away from her reflection, which may be showing her fear of facing the truth.
What drew me to this painting was the relationship I described between people and mirrors. I was walking around the Museum of Modern Art and had already taken pictures of other paintings for potential use, but when I found this one, I felt that it was something we could all relate to. I think when I first looked at it, I thought from a realistic point of view as I was thinking that her reflection looks nothing like her. But that was exactly Picasso’s goal, and soon I started noticing the differences between the girl and her reflection. I thought the message was very relevant in today’s modern world, where there is a lot of fixation on our looks and fitting into beauty standards that feed into our insecurities.
Navya, I love this painting and really enjoyed reading your thoughts about it. I totally agree with your suggestion that Picasso is making us aware of the difference between the subject (the girl), how she sees herself, and her image in the mirror. The only place I would disagree with you (and I think Picasso would agree with me) is when you say that the mirror shows us “the truth”. What’s in the mirror is just an image – and images are, as you have indicated, fundamentally unreliable.