Seated old man 1970

Here we have Picasso’s ‘Seated Old Man’, made with oil on canvas. The marks are so blunt, so unrefined, that it almost seems as though Picasso is starting again, re-learning how to paint as he gets older. Check out the colours: the garish orange background, the strange, mottled, fleshy mask of a face, the flashes of green. It’s like a carnival, but one that's gone a bit rotten. The paint is thick, almost sculptural in places, particularly around the face. The forms are outlined, but imperfectly, as if the figure is struggling to contain himself within the boundaries of the image. Look at the left hand, barely there, almost an absence, a spectral void. This bold, brutal approach has echoes of late Cezanne, but with an added layer of psychological intensity that is all Picasso's own. It’s as if the act of painting itself is a battle, a struggle to capture something fleeting and ephemeral before it disappears forever. This painting is not about answers, but about questions, about the ongoing, never-ending, conversation that is art.