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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
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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
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you
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