Study to "Girls from Avignon" 1906

This study for "Girls from Avignon" is just lines on paper, pure and simple, made by Pablo Picasso. Look at those stark, bold marks scratching across the page. I can almost see Picasso wrestling with the forms, smudging and searching. What's he thinking? Is he trying to get at the raw, untamed energy of these figures? There’s a directness here, like he’s carving shapes out of thin air. The sitting figure, hunched over with minimal detail, feels so heavy and yet weightless, hovering in the space. It's as if Picasso's saying, "I'm not going to pretty this up for you." You know, this reminds me of some of Goya's etchings, that same kind of unflinching honesty. Artists have always been looking to one another, riffing off each other's ideas across time. That's how art keeps moving, through this beautiful, messy conversation.