Seated female nude 1959

This oil painting of a nude was made by Pablo Picasso, its monochrome hues set against a sky-blue background. I can imagine Picasso making this, shifting things around, wiping them away, starting again. You know, that beautiful struggle to get it right! He’s built the figure out of geometric forms and flat planes; the body is made up of these simple, blocky shapes. I like to think he was just figuring out how to translate a three-dimensional form onto a two-dimensional surface. There's something so raw about it, like you're seeing the bare bones of how a painting comes together. Look at the way he’s rendered her hands. Knotted and tense, the fingers are intertwined, creating a focal point of the composition. Her face is a mask of alternating planes – one eye a circle, the other a triangle. I think this is Picasso grappling with the complexities of representation, pushing the boundaries of what a portrait can be. It's a dialogue, really, with the old masters and with other modernists.