A lamp 1931

Pablo Picasso made "A Lamp" using oil on canvas at an unknown date. Just look at how the colour and shapes have been blocked in! It's as if Picasso has built this painting from a kit. I can imagine him, eyes squinting behind a cloud of cigarette smoke, stepping back and forth to look at the canvas as he decides where to put each puzzle piece. The painting looks almost like an interior scene, a woman’s head in front of a lamp. Is it a portrait, still life, or both? Is there a secret here? Maybe it’s just a feeling, a kind of domestic melancholy. That lamp is glowing but it’s trapped in a cage. And that vine creeping up the side — you can see it echoed in the curve of the woman’s neck, and the archway. He's riffing on his own earlier works, but also all the painting that came before him. It's like he's saying, "Yeah, I see you Manet, I see you Cezanne!"