“Who do you think an artist is? …he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”
***One of the most famous and different works of Pablo Picasso has been the painting known as “A girl before a mirror”. Pablo Ruiz y Picasso who was popularly known as Pablo Picasso was a natural born artist born in Malaga in Spain on the 25th day of October, in the year 1881. Apart from being a painter as we all know him but surprisingly he was more than just a painter. He worked as sculptor, print maker, ceramicist, stage designer, playwright and a poet as well. In this work we are going to analysis one of the significant works of the legend. The work was produced by Picasso in the year 1932 and though it described and evoked an image of vanity which was most used in those times but Picasso has very smartly shifted the emphasis and has created a very different view to the image. The work has got lot of appreciations as it was a bold initiative by Picasso to represent what he has indeed represented through the painting through wide range of actions…
The girl in the painting is Picasso’s young French mistress named Marie Therese Walter and she has been painted several times during the 1930s by the courtesy of Picasso. Picasso has demonstrated very much different talent right though his early days, always painting in a realistic manner throughout his childhood and adolescence. It was during the first decade of the 20th century that the style of Picasso changed as he started experimenting with different theories, ideas and techniques in together (pablopicasso.org). He is certainly one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and widely known for co-founding the cubist movement, and this great painting “A girl before a mirror” was actually painted during this period. The mirror image of the girl in the mirror is painted in the cubism style which became very popular during the time frame and Picasso is significantly considered as the founding father of the style. All parts of the painting are painted boldly with geometric patterns. The idea of cubism is to take an object, break it into simple shapes, and then re-creating the broken shapes on a canvas. It is important that each shape represent significance and a different perspective at the same time. But we all know that looking into a mirror for a long time make us doubtful about our beauty, similarly the girl in the mirror sees flaws in her physical beauty. There are number of interpretations one can make from the image like- the girl is pregnant and looking in the mirror trying to notice her lopsided breasts and fat belly, second the girl has an angelic face looking in the mirror but her reflection in the mirror is dark, which gives the girl a sense of being flawed.
For me a girl in the mirror is a painting which talks about reflections of ourselves like we see ourselves to how others see us or I simple words we can think of it as the duality of the nature in daily life. It also signifies that people on a regular note are wrestling themselves but many efforts go unnoticed by others but we need give ourselves some time. I see a beautiful girl in the mirror that is looking for her reflections in the mirror and is very excited about her baby which she’ll be bringing to the world who would be her future reflection. I love the painting because of the fact that you simply don’t understand it on the very first look in fact one will have to invest their time looking to find out what the work is trying to signify is more than just one sees. The painting in a very beautiful way tries to tell us that ‘everything you imagine is real’.
While looking at the painting I tried imagining different things which are not in the painting and that are why Picasso is no doubt one of my favorite painters of all time. Specially the background with crazy diamonds and circle patterns of it being a halocline pattern which symbolizes that Picasso himself thought of himself as a trickster. Hence it is of great importance that the background is a metaphor for Picasso.
The best part of the painting is that it meets you where you are, like if you are ready to go there it’ll invites you to redefine the way you perceive things and if not you just want to keep staying where you are, it will say I am with you there too. I would like to end the analysis by a famous quote by the legend Picasso which surely reflects his style and the content of work.***
“If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse… but surely you will see the wildness…!”
**℘℘ Merry Christmas ℘℘**
sevenoceans 