Harlequin 1915

Picasso made this harlequin painting using oils, but when, who knows exactly? What strikes me is how he's playing with flatness and form, making the figure almost like a set of stacked blocks. Look at the surface – you can see the brushstrokes, the way the paint is layered on, thick in some spots, thin in others. It's not about hiding the process; it’s about revealing it. See that white square behind the harlequin’s legs? There’s this ghostly brown stain bleeding through, a pentimento perhaps, evidence of an earlier idea or layer. That little detail, that ghost in the machine, it’s what makes the painting alive. It feels so spontaneous. He's playing with the language of painting here, twisting and turning it, much like Matisse, a friend of Picasso. I’m reminded that art is not about perfect images, but about open-ended experiments.