Le Marin 1943

Here we see Picasso’s ‘Le Marin’ made with oil on canvas, and you can see those brushstrokes, right? I imagine Picasso standing in front of the canvas, trying to make a painting that’s as alive as he is. I sympathize with him. What’s he thinking? The colour and the paint itself does so much work. Look how the blue of his trousers kind of creeps up into his stripy top. And his face? It’s like he couldn’t decide whether to show us the front view, or the side! See that one big eye staring out at us? It feels like he wants to capture everything, all at once. It makes me think about other painters like Philip Guston, who also wrestled with representation and abstraction. But I keep coming back to that brushstroke. It's bold, confident, and yet there’s something vulnerable about it too. He’s not trying to hide anything. The painting becomes a record of his looking, his thinking, his feeling. And isn't that what painting is all about? A conversation across time, inspiring each other's creativity.