Female nude 1941

This is a painting of a female nude by Pablo Picasso, but when he made it, I don’t know. It's all smoky browns and greys, like a charcoal drawing that's been smudged and blurred, a body emerging out of the gloom. I can imagine Picasso, cigarette dangling from his lips, squinting at his model, trying to capture the essence of her form with these loose, gestural strokes. He’s working fast, not worrying about getting every detail perfect, more interested in the feeling of the thing. See the way the paint is thin and watery in places, almost like a wash? It gives the painting a sense of lightness, of impermanence. But then there are other areas where the paint is thicker, more opaque, like he's really trying to build up the form, to give it some weight. I always think of Picasso as being in conversation with other artists. The female nude has been painted so many times. He must have been looking at them, thinking about them, but then trying to do something new, something different.