Did Picasso Paint This in a Day? | TateShots

[Music] one of the things which is truly fascinating with having a work such as nude woman in the red armchair in our own collection is that we are able to take a closer look we know where it was made we know when it was made but one of the curious things looking at it now in the conservation strategy is that we come a little bit too close the rest of the question however between the inscription in the castle is hand since Waterloo which is where he painted it the 27th and joooeeeeyyyy which is the French works of July 32 it's very unusual to have such a specific date for painting and this certainly suggests that the Castle wanted us to think it was painted in one day only whether it's true or not it's difficult to be certain but certainly the technique of the painting would suggest it was painted very quickly this is considered one of the castles masterpieces and the fact that he can create a painting in such a virtual City possibly in just one day is a remarkable feat it really seems to be that the castle has this mastery of hands and of application that he just did it in one gulp 1932 was a truly extraordinary for Picasso at the end of 1931 it was promised retrospective in the 1930s this was a truly extraordinary for living artists to have a retrospective exhibition and really the question at stake for Picasso at that moment in time was would people think that he truly was the greatest artist of that period or would he come out as being a fraud or charlatans in the first half of the year there's a sense of producing very finished canvasses but then in summer once the exhibition had opened he became much looser more joyful more spontaneous at the same time of course is privatized what's complicated we move between two different relationships this marriage with olga and his relationship with the much younger married to their slyzer he had this question to negotiate what his relationship to the realism would be but in many different ways when theatre because it was in a moment where he had to really clarify what his position was in life as much as enough this is a painting of Martinez well tell who was a very young woman very useful and I think looking at the painting you do get this sense of sensuality Picasso is really exploiting curves and flesh and the differences in gloss and matte and texture really bring out his his feeling for the female form he thought she wanted to make painting where a blind man could fear the buttocks of a naked woman because were talked about how he lied to depict the female nude in the armchair and the answer was enveloping somewhere between Desmarais of a level and a constraint so there is this ambiguity and of course the nude woman in the armchair in a way is relatively passive offering herself up to the gaze of the viewer which one assumes to be amazing he's painting rapidly with his brush he's smudging and he's carving with the end of the brush as well and if you look in the eye there's a nice little end of brush mark where he's just carved into the paint there isn't a friend that has heavily reworked there doesn't seem to show any final struggle with the composition or the way the paint is applied everything seems to be as ladies he's playing with the pigments but he's probably got more on his palate and then as he paints he's mixing them together wet him wet between the red paint which is still wet and then he's adding the thick white highlights and he's not concerned about picking up the color underneath and you get these beautiful swirls of multicolored paint here we've looked to get under the microscope so you can see very distinct brushstroke and I find to take in tiny samples make cross sections so we can study the layer structure of the paint but also to analyze the paint chemically to find out what the medium is and what pigments are [Music] you can see it here in the cross section that the paint was painted wet in wet because unlike having dried layers which sits very neatly on top of each other there's a swirl of color from the layer underneath through the layer above and it shows the dynamic brushstroke where he's picked up the color underneath though we can't be completely certain all the evidence suggests that it was painted in one sitting in a day to depict this moment of abandon joy and intense color the Pearl picker 4000 diminish he seems to be never afraid of taking another risk so no matter how successful he was in working in one vein he would never shy away from completely changing again and trying something different so whether you love him or you hate him I think he's one of those giant acts that stands in the middle of the room of 20th century [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Tate

Views: 178,969

Keywords: Tate, tate modern, picasso, pablo picasso, nude woman in a red armchair, art, modern art, art conservations, 1932, tateshots

Id: o1AVxshcYu0

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 03 2017