Portrait of Marie-Therese 1937

This is Picasso’s ‘Portrait of Marie-Therese’, and you can see he’s already bending the rules of what a portrait should be. It’s not just a likeness, it's a feeling, a sensation. The way the paint is applied is so interesting, right? It’s thin, almost watery in places, but then you have these sharp, defined lines in cool blue framing the face. Notice how the face is broken up into different planes of color. The peachy tone of her cheek seems to float on the surface, and the second eye suggests an attempt to capture her essence. Look at the lips. That slash of red, so confident and bold against the softer colors. And the way he’s painted the hair like a soft halo of yellow. It’s playful but also intense. It reminds me of Matisse, especially the way he uses color to create mood and emotion, but Picasso brings something else, a kind of fractured energy, that’s all his own. It's like he’s saying, why settle for one way of seeing when you can have so many?