This essay was made for a class I'm taking called "Critical Concepts of the Arts", and it's about a few aspects of the way I interpret the meaning of this painting. This article does not utilize AI for writing, only for some background informaiton and to find me a source about what Picasso was up to around 1941.
I chose this painting because the symmetry has in a sense been flipped beyond the normal viewing plane, and she peers out at the viewer from the comfort of a known and celebrated artistic style, produced by the greatest artist of his day. Completely barring off the right side of the head like it was locked down and relocated the upper left side of her face- it reminds me of how people safeguard their class or sense of identity, easily slipping into the “weird-verse” when met with concepts of the day, such as war and occupation. She is very calm in the weirdness of her portrayal which is comforting, but obviously the painting has an almost gross sense of discomfort which seems to harken to the black mood hanging over the Parisians during the Nazi occupation in the 1940’s. There is a sense of maturity with the bold confident lines and subdued tones, it’s almost like Picasso has warped the painting into a possible “idex” (basic representation) of a white clad baby’s body set against a grid. Mickey Mouse had been popular for around 15 years by that point, and I think I can find references to his black ears. Maybe the cartoon is overshadowing the right side of her brain and creating the child's head with a simplified perspective flattened against the canvas (these are my own suggestions). To an untrained observer it might suggest that she has closed a whole side of her mind down in order to only focus on half of reality. These suggestions may have led her to denounce the portraits as “not representing her”, although this is a purely unsubstantiated claim.
This painting was a portrait of Picasso's girlfriend at the time, Dora Maar. She met him while performing a sadist trick of stabbing in between her fingers with a knife and apparently stained her gloves which Picasso later locked in his special safe of momentos (Caws, 2000). She is reported to have said about the many paintings he made of her, “every painting he made of me was a lie, not one of them is Dora Maar”. The paintings are reportedly very sad on the whole, and Picasso was known to use symbology related to the Spanish civil war which he vehemently opposed (myartbroker.com). Dora Maar and Picasso separated in 1943 after an 8 year romance, but were friends thereafter.
I want to explain the rhetoric of this image: the cubist technique was very credible and perceived as high art, which is almost universally still true. It’s not uncommon to find successful artists still employing this style, and what many art collectors are looking for is something that has “value” written all over it. On the other hand, one logical appeal of Picasso’s work is a fascinating connection to the illogical- we are all feeling our way through the world and making experiences and faced with wars, crime, human depravity. Dora Meer may have known the relationship with the vagobond Picasso would eventually fall apart. Deep in the subconscious mind we perceive our surroundings in abstracted and associative ways, something strange in reality becomes even stranger when we try to make sense of it, and even more so when we dont have guidance from thought leaders who we trust. The background thought that she had little hope to contain his sole affection probably led to stress and sadness. There is great logic to understanding that logic is illogical. The emotionality of the painting is a multi pronged sword as it sits just outside the recognition of humanity with its violently warped features. When you focus on the eyes there is a sad tinge to them, and you see them set against an almost brutalist restructuring of her proportions. As we try to make sense of this universally accepted “acceptable weirdness” we search for the humanity in the image, and she seems to be sitting rather confidently. “He portrays Dora on a grand scale with majestic disobedience” (Christies)
An approach identified by Charles Sanders Pierce defines “Iconic, indexical, and symbolic” meaning. Imagine a gradient between two colors- 1 color represents reality, and one represents a true metaphor, such as the word “tree”- the word doesn’t signify the characteristics of a tree, while in a picture you can see the branches. The iconic representation looks like the tree, as in a photograph. Indexical means the representation relies on inputs from the tree for its representation, such as a leaf or a series of green circles. To borrow another use of the word, Picasso’s iconic style is easily recognizable which adds to its ethos, but the iconography used looks like the subject: its clear eyes, for example, and also bears resemblance to other themes I mentioned, such as Mickey Mouse and the baby- these characteristics would be known as indexical by Charles Pierce.
It’s interesting that things which are “iconic” are often indices of the original subject, such as broad outlines or similar color combinations. The blueish color of many of Picasso’s paintings are correlated with his “Blue Period” between 1901-1904, spurred on by his friends suicide and a series of visits to venerial wards where he portrayed sad prostitutes in a prison setting (www.museepicassoparis.fr). Although this painting was made decades later, the color is still symbolic of the intended mood of many of his paintings.
Works Cited
Rebecca Barry, “The Influence of the Spanish Civil War on Pablo Picasso's Art”, MyArtBroker.com, 10 January, 2025
https://www.myartbroker.com/artist-pablo-picasso/articles/influence-spanish-civil-war-pablo-picasso-art
Rebecca Riegelhaupt “RELEASE: Picasso's Femme dans un fauteuil to highlight Christie's October 6 Evening Sale” Christies, 14 September, 202
https://press.christies.com/release-picassos-femme-dans-un-fauteuil-to-highlight-christies-october-6-evening-sale
Caws, Mary Ann (2000). “Picasso's Weeping Woman : The Life and Art of Dora Maar”. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.
Originally found on Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Maar)
PhiloSign (2020). “The Basics of Semiotics (4) Icon, Index, Symbol.” Youtube, 20, January, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4miexCUZWg
This painting was a portrait of Picasso's girlfriend at the time, Dora Maar. She met him while performing a sadist trick of stabbing in between her fingers with a knife and apparently stained her gloves which Picasso later locked in his special safe of momentos (Caws, 2000). She is reported to have said about the many paintings he made of her, “every painting he made of me was a lie, not one of them is Dora Maar”. The paintings are reportedly very sad on the whole, and Picasso was known to use symbology related to the Spanish civil war which he vehemently opposed (myartbroker.com). Dora Maar and Picasso separated in 1943 after an 8 year romance, but were friends thereafter.
I want to explain the rhetoric of this image: the cubist technique was very credible and perceived as high art, which is almost universally still true. It’s not uncommon to find successful artists still employing this style, and what many art collectors are looking for is something that has “value” written all over it. On the other hand, one logical appeal of Picasso’s work is a fascinating connection to the illogical- we are all feeling our way through the world and making experiences and faced with wars, crime, human depravity. Dora Meer may have known the relationship with the vagobond Picasso would eventually fall apart. Deep in the subconscious mind we perceive our surroundings in abstracted and associative ways, something strange in reality becomes even stranger when we try to make sense of it, and even more so when we dont have guidance from thought leaders who we trust. The background thought that she had little hope to contain his sole affection probably led to stress and sadness. There is great logic to understanding that logic is illogical. The emotionality of the painting is a multi pronged sword as it sits just outside the recognition of humanity with its violently warped features. When you focus on the eyes there is a sad tinge to them, and you see them set against an almost brutalist restructuring of her proportions. As we try to make sense of this universally accepted “acceptable weirdness” we search for the humanity in the image, and she seems to be sitting rather confidently. “He portrays Dora on a grand scale with majestic disobedience” (Christies)
An approach identified by Charles Sanders Pierce defines “Iconic, indexical, and symbolic” meaning. Imagine a gradient between two colors- 1 color represents reality, and one represents a true metaphor, such as the word “tree”- the word doesn’t signify the characteristics of a tree, while in a picture you can see the branches. The iconic representation looks like the tree, as in a photograph. Indexical means the representation relies on inputs from the tree for its representation, such as a leaf or a series of green circles. To borrow another use of the word, Picasso’s iconic style is easily recognizable which adds to its ethos, but the iconography used looks like the subject: its clear eyes, for example, and also bears resemblance to other themes I mentioned, such as Mickey Mouse and the baby- these characteristics would be known as indexical by Charles Pierce.
It’s interesting that things which are “iconic” are often indices of the original subject, such as broad outlines or similar color combinations. The blueish color of many of Picasso’s paintings are correlated with his “Blue Period” between 1901-1904, spurred on by his friends suicide and a series of visits to venerial wards where he portrayed sad prostitutes in a prison setting (www.museepicassoparis.fr). Although this painting was made decades later, the color is still symbolic of the intended mood of many of his paintings.
Works Cited
Rebecca Barry, “The Influence of the Spanish Civil War on Pablo Picasso's Art”, MyArtBroker.com, 10 January, 2025
https://www.myartbroker.com/artist-pablo-picasso/articles/influence-spanish-civil-war-pablo-picasso-art
Rebecca Riegelhaupt “RELEASE: Picasso's Femme dans un fauteuil to highlight Christie's October 6 Evening Sale” Christies, 14 September, 202
https://press.christies.com/release-picassos-femme-dans-un-fauteuil-to-highlight-christies-october-6-evening-sale
Caws, Mary Ann (2000). “Picasso's Weeping Woman : The Life and Art of Dora Maar”. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.
Originally found on Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Maar)
PhiloSign (2020). “The Basics of Semiotics (4) Icon, Index, Symbol.” Youtube, 20, January, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4miexCUZWg