Woman with a Book

PABLO PICASSO, 1932, Norton Simon Museum.

The most surprising part of the image is the bottom left.

Three sharp triangles of white, black, and pale blue drive the eye into a corner, pulling us tightly into an invisible point where the shapes converge and disappear.

The effect of this is compression and explosion.

Once we hit that tiny black wall, we are sling-shotted back up and across the canvas.

The entirety of the work appears, a universe expanding out of darkness, an instantaneous existence of rich chroma and sinuous line, of fertility and grace.

Complex harmonies of colors make the image hum against itself: cadmium red pushing in front of ultramarine blue; a yellow picture frame floating on a warm purple wall.

Bright red dots of paint for her lower lip, necklace beads, and nipples. These things are of equal importance.

The face is softer than the body, modeled with pastel gradients, like a doll.

The face is a person, thoughtful and sensuous.

The body is flattened; a series of organic shapes that ooze around each other, pushing and writhing, competing for space.

The strange pattern on the belly and lower half of the breasts looks like innards, as if the abdomen has been sliced open and she is green inside.

There is little humanity in the body.

The body is a vehicle for experimentation. The body can be sacrificed.

The surface texture is thick and grotesque. Slathered applications of paint are piled high with insolence and yet also undeniably as a compliment.

As if the painter wished there to be no mistake, as if to tell us:

Look how I adore her — look how much of my materials I will lavish on her.

I will squeeze the tubes dry for her, so that all the world will know for the rest of time:

She was my muse, she commanded everything from me, and by committing her to canvas, I will never let her go. ❧