Crouching female nude 1959

This large painting, 'Crouching Female Nude', is by Pablo Picasso, but we don't know exactly when he made it. Look at how he's built up the figure with planes of color—browns, grays, and creams mostly. It's like he's constructing this woman piece by piece, through trial, error, and intuition. I can imagine Picasso, brush in hand, circling the canvas, trying to get a handle on how to represent the body in all its complexity. The paint looks kind of thin, but notice the way he's defined the contours with these bold, dark lines, giving a real sense of volume and weight. Take the hand on the left, for example—the way it juts out towards us, with those angular fingers, it’s a really powerful gesture. Picasso must have been wrestling with how to show all sides of something at once. I can see him in dialogue with Cézanne, with Matisse. Artists are always talking to each other through their paintings. It’s a conversation that never ends, and always inspires.