Pablo Picasso was a talented Spanish artist, born on October 25 1881 in Málaga. Although he was born in Spain and spent most of his childhood there, he spent his adulthood in France. Pablo Picasso was a co-founder of the Cubist movement along with Georges Braque. But Picasso changed his art style multiple times in his lifetime; “the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919).”
The work I selected is named “Girl before a mirror”, an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso, which he created in 1932. A painting of a young girl looking at herself in the mirror. The subject of the painting is supposed to be Picasso’s mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter. The painting shows a naked woman looking at her reflection in the mirror.
When looking at the piece the first thing I noticed was the number of circles and sharper shapes such as the triangle used for the woman’s neck, which Picasso used in the portrait. Circles often represent unity. With character design, you use circles to help make your character look more friendly and more approachable. These characters are really outgoing and fun to hang around with, an example can be Mickey Mouse. A triangle that is pointing up, means stability. The girl before the mirror looks warm, with half of her face drawn out to be what seems like a sun. The reflection on the other hand is used a lot more cool colors, making the woman look cold. Cubism allows the artist to use more shapes and colors freely, and this better expresses what the art is representing. On the outside, she might look warm and stable. The reflection in the mirror represents the woman’s inner self as well as desires. We see the woman almost trying to embrace this image of herself in the mirror, with both arms stretched out. She wasn’t able to embrace the mirror completely as she still has difficulty accepting who she truly is.
What drew me to the piece was the colorful and simple/complex art style. The art style itself looks simple enough, there wasn’t a huge focus on detail. Yet I wasn’t sure if it was because of the crowding of shapes that made it look so complex, or was it the meaning behind it. Although I have never really gone into understanding color theory, some of the colors look a bit off, making them stand out more than others.
Eileen, I had never thought about the symbolic meanings of geometric shapes this way, so thanks for this post. I agree with you that one thing that Picasso does beautifully here is reduce the human form to its most basic shapes, so that the woman is presented as a collection of circles, triangles, etc…