The suicide (Casagemas) 1901

Picasso painted this portrait of Casagemas, a close friend, using oil on canvas. The brushwork feels so immediate. It's as if Picasso is urgently trying to capture something fleeting, a memory, or a feeling, not just a likeness. Look at the way he’s built up the form of the shirt with these chunky strokes of white paint. They almost stand in relief from the surface of the canvas, a real, physical presence. And then there are these softer, more translucent washes of blue that make up the background, pushing and pulling to create a feeling of depth and space. The way the paint is handled, it's as if he's literally wrestling with the medium, trying to make it yield to his vision. You can see echoes of Van Gogh’s emotional intensity, but Picasso’s already pushing towards something else, something rawer and more psychologically charged. Art is never finished, only abandoned.