Figure
Pablo Picasso
PABLO PICASSO, 1930. OIL ON WOOD.
Picasso tries to quiet the chaos of the world and find himself. Cubism has faded, society is suspended on the precipice of disaster, caught between the jubilant freedom of the 1920s, the start of The Great Depression and the sense of brewing conflict – Picasso begins to look backwards in order to look forwards. In a newly purchased Chateau in Normandy, with his wife Olga and his mistress Marie-Therese staying down the road, Picasso returns to the image of the Harlequin from 20 years earlier. He distorts her, simplifies her, reduces her not quite to pure form but to an essence of womanhood as he understands it. A serpent like head curls around in a half circle, balanced precariously on a drop of liquid, a triangle unites the head and geometry brings a body to life. These simple shapes making up a figure appeared again and again in 1930 for Picasso, reworked in luminous colour, soft pencil markings and, like here, graphic monochrome. In a world confused, Picasso questioned the very physicality of man.