Girl on the ball 1905

Pablo Picasso painted Girl on a Ball using oil on canvas sometime during his Rose Period. The traditional medium allows Picasso to explore themes of labor and the spectacle of labor. The muted palette gives a somber, contemplative tone. Picasso uses layered brushstrokes to create the contrasting figures of a lithe acrobat balancing effortlessly on a ball, with a muscular athlete seated heavily on a cube. The application of paint is uneven. The materiality is at its most interesting when you consider the artist’s engagement with the subject of circus performers, who traveled as workers, and whose labor was put on display. Consider the amount of work it takes to create art, the work it takes to become an acrobat or a strongman, and the work it takes to survive under a capitalist mode of production. In bringing all these elements together, Picasso asks us to think about the conditions of laboring bodies in modern life. He blurs the distinction between high art and the everyday experience of labor.