The Abduction of Sabines 1962

This is Picasso's, The Abduction of the Sabines. Look at the painting – all those creamy, fleshy tones wrestled into place, and the landscape reduced to a backdrop. You can almost feel Picasso grappling with the history of painting itself! I can imagine Picasso thinking about his forebears, maybe even Rubens, wrestling with the same subject. Imagine him, brush in hand, circling the canvas like a matador in an arena, building up the figures with thick strokes, each one a challenge, an assertion. See how the paint seems to both reveal and conceal? It’s like a skin, stretched and pulled, hinting at the forms beneath. And those bold lines, slashing across the surface, they’re not just outlines, they’re boundaries, tensions. It’s a battle on canvas, a conversation with the past, fought with every dab and stroke. Painting isn't just representation; it's a form of embodied expression.