Seated woman with spelling book 1941

This is Picasso’s 'Seated Woman with Spelling Book,' painted with oil on canvas, and its like a puzzle, right? He lays down these soft, chalky greys and whites, punctuated with jolts of yellow. The process feels so exposed! Look how he builds the figure from geometric forms; a triangle becomes a torso, rectangles become limbs. It’s a world rendered in shapes, and in the lower part of the painting there's a horizontal rectangle where the letters of the alphabet are inscribed. It's all so flat, and slightly out of alignment. Picasso had a conversation with Cezanne, but the colours in this painting also bring to mind the work of Mondrian. These guys understood that art is about thinking, not just seeing. And maybe learning to read and write is a bit like learning to see too!