Bather 1929

Here's Picasso's 'Bather' painted in 1929, it’s all woody browns and cool blues. I can only imagine Picasso building this figure as though it was a kind of surreal sculpture. The planes are geometric, sharp, and then rounded, almost fleshy. It’s weird, like staring into the uncanny. I wonder, was he thinking about his own mortality? I see a skull perched right on top of the structure and the fabric on the right is like a shroud. It is a meditation on form, a deconstruction of the figure into its most basic shapes, then reformed in a way which renders it strange and unfamiliar. Picasso's work was deeply influenced by his contemporaries, and he, in turn, inspired countless artists who followed. He probably wasn’t alone in the studio! There's a lot of experimentation in his paintings – that's what continues to excite and challenge us. Painting is an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity. It can be interpreted in a number of ways and allow for multiple meanings.