Faun unveiling a sleeping girl (Jupiter and Antiope, after Rembrandt) 1936

This etching by Picasso, made at some point in his long career, is all about line, hatching, and cross-hatching. The dark ink and the white paper: he's squeezing everything he can from the contrast. I can almost feel what it was like for him to make this, the scratching and scraping of the plate. The pressure he must have put on certain lines, like in the Faun's hands as he pulls back the curtain... Now Rembrandt, who Picasso is thinking about here, was the master of dramatic storytelling with light and shadow. You get the feeling Picasso is doing his version, through the lens of his own mythology and life. It’s like he's having a conversation with Rembrandt, and maybe with all of art history, taking these old stories and making them his own, with that incredible energy only he could bring.