Head of a woman 1923

Here, we have Picasso’s 'Head of a Woman,' an intense, intimate study of a face emerging from a blue background. Imagine Picasso, brush in hand, circling around her, trying to capture not just a likeness, but a feeling. You see it in the hatching lines on her cheek, like he’s carving out the form, digging into the emotional structure. This isn't just paint, but a record of his looking, his feeling, his thinking. I imagine the artist thinking: How can I make a face that isn’t just a face, but a whole world? It’s like he's trying to build a face from scratch, mixing classical portraiture with a wilder, more primal way of seeing. Artists are always stealing from each other, riffing on old ideas and making them new. Each brushstroke is a conversation with the past. I'd like to think of painting, and looking at paintings, as an exercise in possibility.