Woman with Animals 1914

Albert Gleizes made this oil painting, Woman with Animals, and what strikes me about it is the fracturing of form – a face, a hat, maybe a dog – all broken up and reassembled in a tightly packed composition. I imagine Gleizes was trying to show all sides of his subject at once, almost like a memory, or a feeling. I see a lot of ochre, red and black and how these colours seem to dance with the white and grey geometric shapes. That strong diagonal slash of white is particularly interesting. It cuts across the picture plane, flattening it and creating depth simultaneously. The brushwork seems deliberate, and the paint has a tactile presence. It must have been a real struggle for the artist to resolve the human figure alongside the animals as well as the geometric forms. I wonder if this approach influenced later abstractionists, who pushed even further away from representation. It's like all artists are in this constant dialogue, building on what came before.