Pablo Picasso's Weeping Woman. Pablo Picasso and his seven main women

Painting by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso * "Weeping Woman"

Year of creation: 1936

Technique: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 61 x 50 cm

Collection: London, Tate Gallery

Creative period: War years

Topics: Crying woman

Description of the painting by Pablo Picasso “Weeping Woman”

Pablo Picasso has always amazed people with his ability to paint pictures. His paintings invariably became masterpieces. Of course, Salvador Dali was more extravagant, but Picasso also had a peculiar vision of the world around him. The proof is, for example, the painting "Weeping Woman".

Despite the bright colors used by the artist, the picture is very sad. And everyone looking at a crying woman understands this, feels an inexpressible grief standing in her eyes. After looking at her just once, you begin to wonder about what happened to her. Such torment is reflected in the eyes of a woman that you involuntarily begin to sympathize with her. Perhaps she has lost a loved one and her heart is torn to pieces. One can only guess what was the true cause of such deep grief and unhappy facial expressions.

The author, as if opening a bright mask, shows the audience the real emotions of a woman. He depicts this truth in gray, pale colors: how a woman holds a handkerchief, pressing it to her face, how she gritted her teeth, trying to hold back her tears with all her might. But they roll down the cheeks without asking permission.

Grief and despair distorted the face of the woman depicted on the canvas. It is impossible to recognize him anyway, thanks to the manner of Pablo Picasso. Many women admitted that it was they who posed for the talented artist, but this could not be proven. And how was the authenticity of the words to be verified? The author did not leave a single opportunity. He veiled the image of a woman beyond recognition. And, perhaps, the lady herself wished to remain anonymous. Maybe her grief was so great that she wanted to be unknown to anyone. Everyone can only guess who became Picasso's model and admire the skillful work of the master to convey emotions.

Pablo Picasso "Weeping Woman" (1937).
Canvas, oil. 61 x 50 cm
Tate Gallery, London

The painting depicts Dora Maar, a professional photographer, the daughter of a Croatian architect, with whom the artist had a close relationship for nine years (1936–45). Dora photographed cripples, blind people, clochards, combining beauty and ugliness, luxury and poverty into a mysteriously creepy surrealism. Dora's work was bold, avant-garde, critics called her style "tragic baroque" and "catastrophe aesthetics." Maar became an intellectual outlet for Picasso, who at the time of his acquaintance with her was experiencing a creative crisis. She pushed him towards the avant-garde movement and political themes.

Maar taught the artist how to take pictures, and under his influence she took up painting. Together they made a kind of "photogravure" on glass, from which, like from huge negatives, they made prints on photographic paper. Dora became Picasso's main model for many years. In the canvas “Weeping Woman”, he literally cut the face of his beloved into pieces, exposing the deathly-pale inside of true grief: his mouth is distorted by suffering, his teeth are convulsively tearing a crumpled handkerchief. On this white "inner essence" traces of hands are visible. Weeping, we almost always squeeze our face with our palms, wipe away tears - the master depicted these hands constantly reaching for the face very reliably. The eyes are like two buttons sewn crosswise - dead plastic crosses instead of pupils cross out life in the eyes of the crying woman. "Weeping Woman" is a collective image of all the grieving women who lost their husbands and sons in the war.

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"For me, there are only two types of women - goddesses and rags for wiping feet." Pablo Picasso

"Mystery", "Madness", "Magic" - these are the first words that came to the minds of patrons when they tried to describe the creation of Pablo Picasso. The special aura of the artist was colored by his explosive, Spanish temperament and genius. This is a combination that women could not resist.

website publishes for you the love story of the great painter.

Picasso in his youth and older age

Picasso was a terrific man with the very attractive charm that is now called charisma. However, many women could not come to terms with the character of the artist and committed suicide or went crazy. At the age of 8, Pablo had already written his first serious work, Picador. At the age of 16, Picasso, as if jokingly, entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. He dropped out just as easily. Instead of poring over books, Pablo and his friends began to play tricks on the Madrid brothels.

At the age of 19, the artist went to conquer Paris. Before leaving, Picasso painted a self-portrait. At the top of the picture, he signed in black paint: "I am the king!". However, in the capital of France, the “king” had a hard time. There was no money. One winter, in order not to freeze, he stoked a stone fireplace with his own work.

On the personal front, things were much better.

Women have always adored Picasso.

The first beloved Fernanda Olivier

His first lover was Fernanda Olivier (she was 18, he was 23 years old). In Paris, Pablo Picasso lives in a poor quarter in Montmartre, in a hostel where aspiring artists settled, and where Fernanda Olivier sometimes poses for them. There she meets Picasso, becomes his model and his girlfriend. The lovers lived in poverty. In the mornings they stole croissants and milk. Gradually, Picasso's paintings began to be bought.

Pablo Picasso, Fernanda Olivier and Jaquin Reventos. Barcelona, ​​1906

They lived together for almost a decade, and a large number of both Fernanda's own portraits and, in general, female images painted from her remained from this period.

"Fernanda in a black mantilla", 1905

According to the researchers, she was also a model for the creation of the Avignon Maidens, one of the main paintings by Picasso, a turning point for the art of the twentieth century.

But there was a time when they lived apart (summer and autumn 1907). This summer left bad memories. Both he and she had affairs with others. But the worst thing was that he lived with a woman who did not understand cubism at all, she did not like him. Perhaps Picasso was experiencing an organic depression; later, when he returned to Paris, he was struck by a stomach ailment. His pre-ulcerative state. From now on, the relationship between the brush and the canvas will not go to waste for the artist - cubism, as a complex, was as simple as playing chess in three dimensions. And they parted - Picasso and Fernanda.

Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova

True love came to the artist in 1917, when he met one of Sergei Diaghilev's ballerinas, Olga Khokhlova. The history of their relationship began on May 18, 1917, when Olga danced at the premiere of the ballet "Parade" at the Chatelet Theater. The ballet was created by Sergei Diaghilev, Eric Satie and Jean Cocteau, with Pablo Picasso responsible for the costumes and set design.

Photo portrait of Olga Khokhlova.

Olga Khokhlova, Picasso, Maria Shabelskaya and Jean Cocteau in Paris, 1917.

After they met, the troupe went on tour to South America, and Olga went with Picasso to Barcelona. The artist introduced her to his family. Mother didn't like her. Olga is a foreigner, Russian, not a match for her brilliant son! Life will show that the mother was right. Olga and Picasso were married on June 18, 1918 in the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral. Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob were witnesses at the wedding.

"Portrait of Olga in an armchair", 1917

After they met, the troupe went on tour to South America, and Olga went with Picasso to Barcelona. The artist introduced her to his family. Mother didn't like her. Olga is a foreigner, Russian, not a match for her brilliant son! Life will show that the mother was right.

Olga and Picasso were married on June 18, 1918 in the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral. Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob were witnesses at the wedding.

In July 1919, they went to London for the new premiere of the Russian Ballet - the ballet "Cocked Hat" (Spanish "El Sombrero de tres Picos", French "Le Tricorne"), for which Picasso again created costumes and scenery.

The ballet was also performed at the Alhambra in Spain and was a great success at the Paris Opera in 1919. It was a time when they were happily married and often participated in public events.

On February 4, 1921, Olga's son Paulo (Paul) was born. From that moment on, the relationship of the spouses began to deteriorate rapidly.

Olga squandered her husband's money, and he was desperately angry. And the most important reason for disagreement was the role imposed by Olga Picasso. She wanted to see him as a salon portrait painter, a commercial artist, spinning in high society and receiving commissions there.

"Nude in a red armchair", 1929

Such a life bored the genius to death. This was immediately reflected in his paintings: Picasso portrayed his wife exclusively in the form of an evil old woman, whose distinctive feature was threatening long sharp teeth. Picasso saw his wife this way for the rest of his life.

Marie-Therese Walther

Photo portrait of Marie-Therese Walther.

"Woman in a red chair", 1939

In 1927, when Picasso was 46 years old, he ran away from Olga to 17-year-old Marie-Therese Walter. It was a fire, mystery, madness.

The time of love for Marie-Therese Walter was special, both in life and in creativity. The works of this period differed sharply from the previously created paintings both in style and in color. The masterpieces of the period of Marie Walter, especially before the birth of his daughter, are the pinnacle of his work.

In 1935, Olga learned from a friend about her husband's affair, as well as that Maria Theresa was pregnant. Taking Paulo with her, she immediately left for the south of France and filed for divorce. Picasso refused to divide the property equally, as required by French law, and therefore Olga remained his legal wife until her death. She died of cancer in 1955 in Cannes. Picasso didn't go to the funeral. He just breathed a sigh of relief.

Dora Maar

Photograph of Dora Maar.

After the birth of a child, he cools off to Marie and gets himself another mistress - 29-year-old artist Dora Maar. One day, Dora and Marie-Thérèse met by chance in Picasso's studio when he was working on the famous Guernica. The angry women demanded that he choose one of them. Pablo replied that they should fight for him. And the ladies attacked each other with their fists.
Then the artist said that the fight between his two mistresses was the most striking event in his life. Marie-Thérèse soon hanged herself. And Dora Maar, who will forever remain in the painting "Weeping Woman".

"Weeping Woman", 1937

For the passionate Dora, the break with Picasso was a disaster. Dora ended up in the Paris psychiatric hospital of St. Anne, where she was treated with electric shocks. She was rescued from there and brought out of the crisis by an old friend, the famous psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. After that, Dora completely withdrew into herself, becoming for many a symbol of a woman whose life is broken by love for the cruel genius of Picasso. Secluded in her apartment near the Rue Grand-Augustin, she plunged into mysticism and astrology, and converted to Catholicism. Her life stopped, perhaps in 1944, when there was a break with Picasso.

Later, when Dora returned to painting, her style changed radically: now lyrical views of the banks of the Seine and landscapes of the Luberon came out from under her brush. Friends organized an exhibition of her work in London, but it went unnoticed. However, Dora herself did not come to the vernissage, explaining later that she was busy, as she was painting a rose in a hotel room ... Having survived for a quarter of a century the one who, according to Andre Breton, was the "crazy love" of her life, Dora Maar died in July 1997 at the age of 90, alone and in poverty. And about a year later, her portrait "Weeping Woman" was sold at auction for 37 million francs.

The love of Picasso and Dora Maar, which blossomed during the war, did not stand the test of the world. Their romance lasted seven years, and it was a story of broken, hysterical love. Could she be different? Dora Maar was passionate in feelings and creativity. She had an unbridled temperament and a fragile psyche: her bursts of energy were followed by periods of deep depression. Picasso is usually called the "sacred monster", but it seems that in human terms he was just a monster.

Françoise Gilot

The artist quickly forgot the mistresses he had abandoned. Soon he began to meet with 21-year-old Francoise Gilot, who was suitable for the master as a granddaughter. Met her in a restaurant and immediately invited her... to take a bath. In occupied Paris, hot water was a luxury, and Picasso was one of the few who could afford it.

From Picasso by Henri Gidel:
In Mougins, Pablo paints portraits - Lee Miller, Nyusha, Dora, Vollard ... Probably, under the influence of Guernica, he paints many tragic faces. These are weeping women, most of them endowed with the features of Dora. The next year, the faces of women in portraits become more and more agitated, shocked, distorted, as, for example, in his famous portrait of the Weeping Woman. Working on Guernica, Pablo painted from Dora women's faces flooded with tears. And he continues to do so, and the correct facial features of a young woman are often distorted so much that they evoke horror.
Unlike Fernanda, who was indignant when her face was distorted, or Olga, who openly despised Pablo's attempts to disfigure women's faces, Dora Maar was the most patient. She sees in such "modifications" only plastic experiments, to which, in her opinion, the artist has the right. In addition, she is so confident in her own beauty that she considers herself invulnerable. And Picasso repeatedly repeated that he sees her only in tears. This manner of depicting Dora is not at all dictated by his desire to disfigure her, but by artistic necessity, which subjugates him, for, as he said more than once, his painting is stronger than his will.

Pink dress 1864 - Frederic Bazille portrayed Teresa on the terrace
at the far end of the garden. She is wearing a simple dress with vertical
pink and silver gray stripes, and a black apron. Theresa
sits with his back to the viewer, and looks towards the village... -

Comments

2016

Alexander, Belgorod
March 31
Amazing, wonderful picture. External beauty and deep emptiness and pain inside. How modern it is. How many such women are around now!

2015

2013

Roman, St. Petersburg
December 17
The picture is very very beautiful! I have an absolutely identical copy (in oil) hanging at home as the original exactly the same and in size too. This picture was made by a very good artist. I am happy with this picture at home, I just can’t get enough of it.
They offered 120t.r., but I don’t really want to sell it, it’s too good a copy))

Paul,
May 29
Amazing picture, unusual range of colors. It is worth watching live, a storm of feelings.

Milan, Sochi
March 27
I like this picture!! The artist conveys his feelings and emotionality. Since artists always leave a particle of themselves, at least a small one, they do. Here the artist clearly conveyed his pain, how bad and sad he felt. Pablo Picasso betrayed the term geometric shapes, apparently he wanted to convey then when we cry, what happens inside of us. I feel very sorry for this girl.

Kirill, Kovrov
March 03
From the picture, a woman is looking at us with bottomless eyes full of sadness and pain. In her hands is a handkerchief that she tightly clutches in her teeth, as if she is suffering unbearable pain. Only this pain is not bodily, but spiritual. The picture conveys a very strong feeling of sadness and longing, which very unusual the picture is painted in bright and saturated colors. Behind the woman is a yellow wall, symbolizing the happy world around her, which does not share her grief. There are tears on the woman’s cheeks, but there are none in her eyes. This shows that grief passes. Time heals.

2012

Olya-la, Krasnoyarsk
November 01
In this picture, I see not just the grief of a woman, I also see her inner experiences.

Alexei,
June 10th
Understanding requires diligence. Nato it and art that you will not see in nature! After the 1000th painting, the essence begins to hide deeper in the details.

Five-year-old, Khabarovsk
May 27
As a child, this picture in the journal "Science and Life" scared me a lot. Plus, a venomous comment was attached, they say, it was found out that some patients see the world exactly like Picasso. Hence the conclusion: was he sick ...
Over the years, however, I realized that everything is much deeper and better. And newspapers should not be trusted in matters of art.

Dima, Zaporozhye
January 15
Kind of strange. (some kind of idiocy (another person's comment))

2011

2010

Marusya, Barnaul
December 28th
What surprises me the most is how the artist was able to convey the grief of a woman with the help of pure, bright and rich colors.

Tatiana, Volgodonsk
September 06
This grief cannot be more accurately conveyed ...

Valentine, St. Petersburg
September 04
Real grief! You can cry yourself!

Nastya, Moscow
August 02
By the way, this picture is the most expressive of Pablo Picasso. It can be seen that grief is such that there is nowhere worse.

Natalia,
20 April
Probably he himself was sad when he painted ...

2009

Natali, Moscow
November 07
and in my opinion Dora's temperament is very accurately conveyed

Eugene, Samara
28 of October
It's a pity for the woman, the artist mutilated her greatly. Here is the roar.

Kolya, Lutsk
February 03
the picture is effectively hostile. although it is absolutely abstract, but the woman's suffering is conveyed realistically. super.

"Weeping Woman" Picasso - one of the images of the twentieth century
The Metropolitan Museum has opened the exhibition "Picasso's weeping woman" (Picasso`s weeping woman), which contains more than 70 female portraits created over a period of twenty years - from the early 20s to the early 40s. The exhibition caused a great resonance, like any extensive exhibition of Picasso, who is considered to be the largest artist of the twentieth century - the only one comparable to the giants of the Baroque. The work of Picasso, closely intertwined with the dramatic events of our century, makes us think not only about the three women whose portraits are presented at the exhibition - Olga Khokhlova, Dore Maar and Marie-Therese Walter - but also about the main collisions of the century. Art critic ARKADY Y-IPPOLITOV writes about the exhibition.

In 1937, Picasso painted the painting "Weeping Woman". It depicts a woman's face distorted by flour. The viewer can only guess that this is a face, since the portrait arises from the chaos of rigid geometric lines. Real proportions are broken and subject to one idea: to convey suffering that turns a face into something terrible, out of shape, monstrous. The artist was quite successful in this task, and Picasso's fantastic mirage evokes some later textbook photographs. For example, documentary shots of weeping Czechs herded into the streets to greet the entry of German troops into Prague in 1939. Convulsions of crying disfigure faces, but hands are raised in a fascist salute. So less than two years later, reality surpassed the "shocking" Picasso.
"Weeping Woman" dates back to October 1937. A little earlier, in May, he creates his famous "Guernica", written under the impression of the events of the Spanish Civil War. On April 26, 1937, German aviation, at the direction of General Franco, bombarded the city of Guernica, almost wiping it off the face of the earth. Photos of the destroyed Guernica immediately appeared in French newspapers. The destruction of the city turned out to be neither the largest nor the bloodiest war crime of the 20th century, but the international community, which was not yet accustomed to such actions, was terribly suppressed. Picasso wrote an open letter against the Franco regime, and created a picture best described in his own poetic lines: "... the crying of children, the crying of women, the crying of birds, the crying of flowers, the crying of stones and beams ..."
"Weeping Woman" was a kind of postscript "Guernica". Many researchers associate this painting with one of the figures on the large canvas, and although there is no direct resemblance between them, it is obvious that both works are closely related. Usually, "The Weeping Woman" is considered in the context of the great artist's social gestures, which are not very characteristic of him. And the fact that the exhibition of female portraits, seemingly frankly lyrical, was called "Picasso's Weeping Woman" at first glance causes some bewilderment.
In 1937, when Picasso created many paintings, engravings and drawings dedicated to Spanish events, his life was outwardly serene and happy. Together with his girlfriend Dora Maar, the artist rents an atelier in the center of Paris, travels to the south of France and Switzerland. She introduced Picasso to Georges Bataille, a philosopher and writer, author of political-economic, ethnological and cultural works, as well as short stories and novels. Bataille became a fairly close friend of Picasso, and meetings of the society of aesthetes, founded by this admirer of the Marquis de Sade, were often held in the artist's studio. The works of Picasso of this particular time are characterized by intense eroticism, which is also noticeable in the images of the young Marie-Therese Walter. The blond beauty became Picasso's favorite muse and posed for him almost more often than Dora Maar. But the resulting compositions can be called portraits rather conditionally - their main theme was the magical perfection of rounded shapes and lines.
In parallel with this kind of work, glorifying the joie de vivre, Picasso paints female figures, turned by his imagination into terrible surreal monsters, as in the painting "Girls with a toy ship" also in 1937. It all culminates in the 1940 Woman Combing Her Hair. The naked female figure here looks like a formidable chimera. Needless to say, this thing has become an allegory of the horror in which France plunged. But in a paradoxical way, the features of Dora Maar and Marie-Thérèse Walter are also guessed in the "Weeping Woman", and in "The Woman Combing Her Hair", and in the distorted female faces of "Guernica". And the name given to the exhibition of female portraits by Picasso is by no means accidental.
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