A dream 1932

Pablo Picasso made "A Dream" with oil on canvas, we can only imagine the dreaming that went into it! Picasso works with a playful confidence here. The painting is rendered in bold and flat colour, as if built from cut paper. Note how the face is divided, one side shadowed and the other light. Look at how the hand and forearm are rendered with the bare minimum of lines. It's a confident simplicity, but not without tension. The palette is rich but not overly complex, full of pinks and reds that push against the green and brown of the background. Take a look at Matisse, especially his interior scenes. Both artists shared a love of flattened space and decorative pattern. But where Matisse’s paintings are often harmonious, Picasso embraces something more jarring and ambiguous. What does it mean to dream, and what lies beneath the surface? That's for you to decide.