Bruno Barata
Dr. Donald Wellmen
Art of the Modern Period HU 308 A
3 March 2012
The Seated Woman: The
Story Behind the Paint
World
War II in 1941, the German’s had really started to pick up their offensive
power. At this point in the war, Germany had started their final attack against
Russia. People were fleeing left and right, trying to get away from the tight
grip of the Nazi’s, yet a brave man stayed to paint. The man’s name was Pablo
Picasso, and the painting that captivates my eye is The Seated Woman (1941). This painting also goes by the name Femme assise dans un fauteuil. This
painting displays a lot of color opposites, different perspectives, some
parallel lines, and much, much more. What makes this painting so appealing to
the eye is not the painting its self, but the emotion you get from seeing it.
The painting, “The Seated Woman”, painted in 1941 by Pablo Picasso conveys
powerful emotions simply due to the way it is painted.
As
stated, The Seated Woman was painted
during WWII. He continued to paint regardless of the Nazi’s view on his work.
“Picasso’s artistic style did not fit the Nazi ideal of art, so he did not
exhibit during this time. Retreating to his studio, he continued to paint
(Wikipedia.org)”. if you look at the painting, there is something off about the
window. When the window is placed in relation to the walls and the chair, the
window looks like its staring right at you where the orientation of the
painting looks like he is looking at her from a higher angle. Now notice in the
window the colors, yellow and red, almost as if he is showing fiery scene,
which could be used to describe what was going on during the war.
In this painting,
there are a couple things that stand out right at you, let us start with the
women’s face. First off, it is separated as if half of her face is hanging off
the side of her head. She also has one eye facing a white wall while the other
is staring at you. The white circles on her shirt are not flat, they are globs
of paint made into a circle. Speaking of flat, the chair she is sitting on
seems to be flat as well, it does not seem to support her at all. An
interesting thing about the chair that I noticed is the shape of the chair. The
chair is almost guitar shaped, this painting was painted after all the guitar
paintings so there is a possibility that he could have done this on purpose.
Especially since the colors of the guitar are similar to wood.
His use
of color is what catches your eye. The wall with the window is a bloody red,
which is interesting because the opposite wall is a white. I believe he uses
this to show the contrast between his studio and the outside world. To him, his
studio was his world, a place where he could be himself and did not have to
deal with the horrors on the outside. This is similar to the window wall and
the green wall, these two colors are opposites on the color wheel. Another
major color comparison would be between the greenish yellow floor and the
women’s outline. They share the same color, to me, when I hear or talk about
the floor I think about the earth. I think he is doing the same effect as the
red to white wall; this is his way of separating out her from the outside
world.
Funny
thing about the ground is that you can see all the bottoms of chair, and yet
the walls look almost angled. I say that
this is upward angle because the fact that the blue ceiling is bordered with a
lighter blue and the fact that you can still see all the wheels. The blue used
for both the ceiling and the ceiling border, is also used in the women’s dress
and in parts of her hand. These darker
colors are shadows, this is obvious because of the position of the window. He
uses the light generated by the window to display shadows on her and instead of
using a black paint to display shadows he uses a dark blue. By using blue, it
almost gives the impression that the light is not that intense, almost like it
is coming from a fire. Picasso does the same effect in another one of his
painting called “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon”(moma.org). the last woman on the
right is showing a dark shadow over her face , which could be seen as a shadow
but he does not use black, but a mixture of darker colors.
Hue and
tone is heavily shown throughout the painting. I define tone as the depth of a
color shown where as hue is color in its simplest form. I believe that this is
what Picasso was doing with the colors in this painting. All the colors in the
painting are pure color, nothing is dulled out, and everything is a vivid
color, almost as if Picasso painted with the rainbow itself. Even the color
black is a vivid black, it is not dull in the least bit. For example, the
window is the only place that color is really mixing but it is very subtle,
almost as if he painted the red over the yellow.
What is
really important from this painting is the style of the painting, she was
painted during “the period of Neoclassicist & Surrealist”(wikipaintings.org).
this is an interesting fact because this painting is very basic. At first I
wanted to say that this painting was similar to cubism, but the more I studied
different styles present around during that period I believe this painting’s
style to be that of Primitivism. Primitivism is a taking shapes into their
simplest forms, which can be seen in this painting. Her arm that in partly
covered in shadow, is simply a rectangle, and her opening of the dress above
her breasts have the simple form of a triangle. Her fingers are small ribbon
like objects, objects being the key word. These ribbons are meant to represent fingers
and yet they look nothing like fingers, to be honest we assume they are fingers
because they are on the end of an arm, but who’s to say that rectangle is an
arm. What Primitivism lacks in sophistication and multiple strokes of the brush
it makes up for in simplicity.
The Seated Woman is truly a marvelous
work of art. From the vivid color of paint, that transcends the simplicity of
the shapes in the woman, to the contrast that visibly battles the tone and hue
in the colors. The Seated Woman gives
off nothing but powerful emotions that when mixed with knowledge of the history
of the painting brings together a close to a majestic work of art. This
painting helps to show where cubism ended up and that simplistic form cannot be
obtained, but can done in such way to make even a cluster of triangles,
beautiful.
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Works Cited
"Basic Color Theory." Color Matters Welcomes You
to the World of Color: Symbolism, Design, Vision, Science, Marketing and More!
Color Welcome. Web. 05 Mar. 2012. <http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory>.
"Les Demoiselles D'Avignon." MoMA.org. Web.
05 Mar. 2012.
<http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=79766>.
"Pablo Picasso." Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso>.
"Pi Woman Seated." Faculty Home Pages.
Daniel Webster College. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
<http://faculty.dwc.edu/wellman/Pi_Woman_Seated.htm>.
Picasso, Pablo. Woman in Striped Armchair. 1941.
Currier Museum, Manchester, NH. Www.wikipaintings.org. Currier Museum.
Web. 5 Mar. 2012.
<http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/pablo-picasso/woman-in-striped-armchair-1941>.
"World War 2 Timeline." Timeline of Events in
1941 during the Second World War. Historic UK. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
<http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/World-War-2-Timeline-1941/>.