Woman In An Armchair Picasso Analysis

The artwork I’ve chosen for this assignment is Pablo Picasso’s 1960 painting, Woman in an Armchair (Jacqueline Roque Picasso). The painting depicts Picasso’s second wife, Jacqueline Picasso, sitting in an armchair staring at the viewer. In this painting Picasso uses a darker, earthy palette consisting of olive greens, black, beige, white and grey. The painting is done in Picasso’s signature Analytical Cubist style. Picasso uses his unique style to turn a common portrait into something abstract and whimsical. As stated in our notes Cubism was a movement invented by Picasso himself after the short lived Fauvist movement. In our text book Visual Arts in the 20th Century Lucie Smith compares these two movements saying, “Fauvism and Cubism were alike in one fundamental respect: each attempted to replace conceptual by perceptual reality, but the Cubists …show more content…
The paint itself seems very watered down, however there are opaque areas on his wife’s neck. Looking at the piece it’s obvious he did not want to hide his brush strokes. In the background there is no even gradation between each color. It looks as if the colors are fighting each other for the viewer’s attention. Picasso’s style makes it hard to tell what direction his wife is facing. The left side of her face is looking at the viewer, but the right looks like it’s turned away. Her expression is calm and happy it gives me the impression of her happily watching Picasso paint her portrait. The arm chair she sits on is no more than a sweeping line that hugs her figure; the chair has no depth or shading. As my eyes travel down the picture plane the lines fade from black to a soft beige. The edges on this painting aren’t as sharp as Picasso’s other works like Les Desmoiselles d 'Avignon. In that painting the women all have sharp features and their bodies are angular. Meanwhile, this painting seems fluid the lines sweep across the canvas creating smooth