The Abduction of Sabines 1962

Picasso made this painting called ‘The Abduction of the Sabines’ with oil on canvas. You can see the way Picasso builds up the image using an energetic process of layering and reworking. What’s interesting here is how the material aspects of the work - the texture, the color, the surface - shape our emotional experience. The paint is applied in thick, expressive strokes, and it feels like he used pretty large brushes. Look at the bottom right, there’s a figure almost lying down, and you can see the bare canvas showing through, which makes the whole painting feel rawer and more immediate. It’s almost as if you’re watching him make the painting in real time. The Abduction of the Sabines has some relation to the work of Delacroix - whose work was also about capturing historical events with a sense of movement and dynamism. But where Delacroix can be seen as celebratory, Picasso’s focus is on the trauma and violence of this moment. For Picasso, art wasn’t about fixed meanings but about embracing the ambiguities of life, and this painting reflects that perfectly.