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Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)
Pablo Picasso • Painting, 30.10.1932
Description of the artwork «Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)»
The beginning of 1932 in the life of Picasso was marked by an exceptional series of large-scale, color-saturated, enthusiastic images of his secret lover and muse Maria-Teresa Walter. A year earlier, he deified her stately forms and classic profile in a large cycle of plaster busts. Now the artist allowed his young passion - as well as the romantic and erotic bliss in which he was - to fill his paintings.
Depicting her sitting and lying, Picasso created artistic alchemy with these two motives, before which he admired. Maria Teresa was transformed from a stylized object of sexual dreams into an exaggerated voluptuous nude with delicate purple skin. On one canvas, it appears as a surreal jumble of multifaceted forms, on the other it is transformed into an allegorical classical bust. This series of paintings, which includes such iconic works as "Sleep", "Nude, green leaves and bustAnd "Girl in front of the mirror", became the culmination of Picasso's artistic language. “There is no doubt that 1932 marks the peak of feverish activity and achievement. This is the year of enthusiastic masterpieces that reach a new peak in both painting and sculpture. ", - says art critic and curator William Rubin.
The painting "Woman Sitting by the Window (Maria Teresa)" was painted on October 30, 1932. She is one of the great portraits to complete the euphoric series of creations of this fruitful year. Here the heroine is presented as a deified muse who rules the artist and his work. Maria Teresa fills the entire area of the monumental canvas. She not only dominates the composition flooded with light, but also penetrates the spectator's space, reducing him with her gaze to a mere mortal. Picasso presented her not as a man of flesh and blood, but as a winged goddess, modern Nika, shining with light and life. Her radiant, sculptural head, as if carved out of marble, is framed by a wall of sky blue, and her sensual and soft body consists of curved planes wrapped around a fiery red torso. There is no more languidly lying naked, which is immersed in thought. In this portrait, Maria-Teresa is dressed, she has a wary and erect posture, and the all-seeing eye demonstrates that she is in complete control of her world - her beloved artist is completely in her slavery.
The youth and majestic beauty of Maria Teresa inspired Picasso to create a new pictorial language. And the closeness awakened the desire to convey her body in both two- and three-dimensional forms. In The Woman Sitting at the Window, Picasso transformed her gentle, docile nature and bodily sensibility into a painting that combines sculpture and painting. The portrait resembles the plaster busts of 1931, the instantly recognizable profile has a pronounced sculpturality. Its outlines are reproduced in one line, as if the artist traced it with his finger.
The story of how Maria Teresa took the leading position in the work of Picasso is well known. At the beginning of 1927, the artist was increasingly disappointed and annoyed by the world of the upper bourgeoisie of right-bank Paris, which was adored by his wife, the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova. Having quickly fallen out of love with Olga, the artist was looking for new inspiration, especially the mythical "mad love". One evening he found her in a stately, bright, blue-eyed young blonde, whom he met at the Galeries Lafayette. “You have an interesting face, I would like to paint your portrait. I feel that great things await us together. I am Picasso ", - he allegedly said at the meeting.
Taken by surprise, Marie-Teresa agreed to a rendezvous the following Monday at the Saint-Lazare train station. “The name Picasso meant nothing to me- she later recalled. - I was interested in his tie. And then he charmed me "... Just a few days later, the girl visited the artist at his house on Boethi Street. “He took me to his studio. He looked at me, conquered me. He did not look away from my face. When I was leaving, he said, "Come back tomorrow." And then there was always "tomorrow" ", - she said.
At first, Picasso was forced to hide Maria-Teresa in his works - the artist was married, and her presence in his life was a secret. He depicted her with secret codes, for example, in the form of a fruit in a still life or in interwoven initials in guitar strings. Striking, yet still anonymous, hints of her stately body can be found in biomorphic reinterpretations of nude on the beach in 1927 and 1928.
Only in 1931 - four years after the beginning of their love affair - the image of Mary-Teresa began to appear in a recognizable form. By this time, the artist was living in Boishelo, a secluded picturesque castle northwest of Paris, which he bought in 1930. In the Parisian apartment where Picasso lived with his wife, he could not meet with his new lover - and they could not be seen together in the world. Boishelo was an ideal meeting place and a refuge from growing jealousy, neuroses and Olga's never-ending claims.
The extensive stables and outbuildings of the castle gave Picasso what he never had - the space to create a sculptural studio. He plunged headlong into new experiments with monumental figurative sculpture. A number of busts from that time represent the classic images of Maria Teresa - her high cheekbones, wide-set eyes and prominent Greek nose - as well as exaggerated, highly stylized representations of femininity and eroticism.
By the end of June 1931, Picasso had retired from these plaster works. Nevertheless, the relationship between sculpture and painting became firmly established in his work. The monumental figurative language that he invented in these works became the defining aesthetics in his portraits of Marie-Teresa the following year - and this is very clearly seen in The Woman Sitting at the Window.
In this work, Picasso's beloved masterfully embodies these two types of art. He captured her voluptuous forms with wavy, flat, monochromatic forms. The face is conveyed in the same formal language as her sculptural images - the embodiment of classical idealism. The same open, free outline can be seen in the three-dimensional form of the "Woman's Head" from 1931.
Depicting her sitting and lying, Picasso created artistic alchemy with these two motives, before which he admired. Maria Teresa was transformed from a stylized object of sexual dreams into an exaggerated voluptuous nude with delicate purple skin. On one canvas, it appears as a surreal jumble of multifaceted forms, on the other it is transformed into an allegorical classical bust. This series of paintings, which includes such iconic works as "Sleep", "Nude, green leaves and bustAnd "Girl in front of the mirror", became the culmination of Picasso's artistic language. “There is no doubt that 1932 marks the peak of feverish activity and achievement. This is the year of enthusiastic masterpieces that reach a new peak in both painting and sculpture. ", - says art critic and curator William Rubin.
The painting "Woman Sitting by the Window (Maria Teresa)" was painted on October 30, 1932. She is one of the great portraits to complete the euphoric series of creations of this fruitful year. Here the heroine is presented as a deified muse who rules the artist and his work. Maria Teresa fills the entire area of the monumental canvas. She not only dominates the composition flooded with light, but also penetrates the spectator's space, reducing him with her gaze to a mere mortal. Picasso presented her not as a man of flesh and blood, but as a winged goddess, modern Nika, shining with light and life. Her radiant, sculptural head, as if carved out of marble, is framed by a wall of sky blue, and her sensual and soft body consists of curved planes wrapped around a fiery red torso. There is no more languidly lying naked, which is immersed in thought. In this portrait, Maria-Teresa is dressed, she has a wary and erect posture, and the all-seeing eye demonstrates that she is in complete control of her world - her beloved artist is completely in her slavery.
The youth and majestic beauty of Maria Teresa inspired Picasso to create a new pictorial language. And the closeness awakened the desire to convey her body in both two- and three-dimensional forms. In The Woman Sitting at the Window, Picasso transformed her gentle, docile nature and bodily sensibility into a painting that combines sculpture and painting. The portrait resembles the plaster busts of 1931, the instantly recognizable profile has a pronounced sculpturality. Its outlines are reproduced in one line, as if the artist traced it with his finger.
The story of how Maria Teresa took the leading position in the work of Picasso is well known. At the beginning of 1927, the artist was increasingly disappointed and annoyed by the world of the upper bourgeoisie of right-bank Paris, which was adored by his wife, the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova. Having quickly fallen out of love with Olga, the artist was looking for new inspiration, especially the mythical "mad love". One evening he found her in a stately, bright, blue-eyed young blonde, whom he met at the Galeries Lafayette. “You have an interesting face, I would like to paint your portrait. I feel that great things await us together. I am Picasso ", - he allegedly said at the meeting.
Taken by surprise, Marie-Teresa agreed to a rendezvous the following Monday at the Saint-Lazare train station. “The name Picasso meant nothing to me- she later recalled. - I was interested in his tie. And then he charmed me "... Just a few days later, the girl visited the artist at his house on Boethi Street. “He took me to his studio. He looked at me, conquered me. He did not look away from my face. When I was leaving, he said, "Come back tomorrow." And then there was always "tomorrow" ", - she said.
At first, Picasso was forced to hide Maria-Teresa in his works - the artist was married, and her presence in his life was a secret. He depicted her with secret codes, for example, in the form of a fruit in a still life or in interwoven initials in guitar strings. Striking, yet still anonymous, hints of her stately body can be found in biomorphic reinterpretations of nude on the beach in 1927 and 1928.
Only in 1931 - four years after the beginning of their love affair - the image of Mary-Teresa began to appear in a recognizable form. By this time, the artist was living in Boishelo, a secluded picturesque castle northwest of Paris, which he bought in 1930. In the Parisian apartment where Picasso lived with his wife, he could not meet with his new lover - and they could not be seen together in the world. Boishelo was an ideal meeting place and a refuge from growing jealousy, neuroses and Olga's never-ending claims.
The extensive stables and outbuildings of the castle gave Picasso what he never had - the space to create a sculptural studio. He plunged headlong into new experiments with monumental figurative sculpture. A number of busts from that time represent the classic images of Maria Teresa - her high cheekbones, wide-set eyes and prominent Greek nose - as well as exaggerated, highly stylized representations of femininity and eroticism.
By the end of June 1931, Picasso had retired from these plaster works. Nevertheless, the relationship between sculpture and painting became firmly established in his work. The monumental figurative language that he invented in these works became the defining aesthetics in his portraits of Marie-Teresa the following year - and this is very clearly seen in The Woman Sitting at the Window.
In this work, Picasso's beloved masterfully embodies these two types of art. He captured her voluptuous forms with wavy, flat, monochromatic forms. The face is conveyed in the same formal language as her sculptural images - the embodiment of classical idealism. The same open, free outline can be seen in the three-dimensional form of the "Woman's Head" from 1931.
