Skull, urchins and lamp on a table 1943

Pablo Picasso made this painting of a skull, urchins and lamp on a table using oil paint, and you can see it at the Musée Picasso in Paris. Look how Picasso built this scene, tilting and shifting the objects into unexpected angles. I like to imagine him circling the objects, trying to find their essence. It is like he’s in dialogue with them. The skull, the urchins, and the lamp are reduced to their bare forms, almost like geometric puzzles. There’s a tension here between the sharp, spiky urchins and the stark skull. And that lamp, sitting there like a silent witness. It feels like a meditation on mortality, you know? But not in a heavy way. It's more like a playful curiosity with those blues and greys. Picasso’s always been one to shake things up. He’s got this way of turning familiar stuff into something totally new. It is like he's asking us to look at the world from a fresh perspective.