Cubism is considered the most influential art movement in early 20th century. Pablo Picasso is the pioneer of this movement, and one of the two founders of Cubism. As we all known, Cubism is Picasso’s most famous and influential style, but few people know that simultaneity of vision is an important technique of Cubism, which means seeing the object from many angles at once. In Cubist artwork, instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, objects are broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form. The cubist artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints in order to represent the subject in a greater context.
I think Picasso’s painting Girl Before a Mirror in MOMA perfectly represents this technique of representing simultaneity. Girl Before a Mirror has been widely known for its varied interpretations of the lover and the beloved. In this painting, Picasso used colors and symbols to reveal conflicting facets of the same woman, his young mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter. The painting shows different ways Picasso viewed her and the ways that she viewed herself. The girl’s figure has been described as “simultaneously clothed, nude and X-rayed”. In this painting we can see that the woman and her image in the mirror are different. Picasso uses bright colors in her face to increase her beauty and show her youth, so that to represent her happy times from Picasso’s viewpoint. On the contrary, for the reflection in the mirror Picasso uses dark colors which make her look very old to represent her hate, unhappiness, and fear of losing her youth from her viewpoint.
GIRL BEFORE A MIRROR
I like that you approached simultaneity from a technical standpoint first by explaining how Cubism seeks to present a subject from different perspectives. It helped me understand Picasso’s purpose with this painting by having the girl be brightly colored but her reflection be much darker. I think that plays in well with the simultaneity in Mrs. Dalloway where we got different views on Clarissa from both her own perspective and the perspective of others.
I did a painting by Pablo Picasso as well, and I came across this one too and found the description very interesting. My painting as well described simultaneity in a way that I would not have thought of just by looking at the painting. I noticed that both Girl Before a Mirror is different from Ma Jolie in that you can actually see a woman’s face in the painting, while mine was very difficult to find the face of a woman. I really enjoyed your perspective on this painting!