Nude, study to "Harem" 1906

Picasso made this study for a painting called “Harem” with watercolour, building up the image in delicate washes. I feel like I’m right there with him as he is figuring it out, adding layer upon layer. The red monochrome creates a warm, intimate, and enveloping feeling. It's so different from the way we often think about Picasso, who could be so bombastic. There is something so vulnerable and human about this image. It's almost like you can see him thinking, and feel him making the shifts in the painting; maybe he steps back and reconsiders a line, or he changes the angle of the head. I wonder if he was thinking of Delacroix when he made this? Like all great artists, he was in conversation with the masters. Painting is a kind of embodied expression. And, it’s not just about the end result, but the process of getting there. It’s open to all sorts of meanings, it doesn’t have to be fixed.