Picasso's Weeping Woman...?

Question

For my GCSE mock art exam, I have based my own peice on 'The Weeping Woman' by Pablo Picasso.

I now need to analise & describe the painting in depth.

This is where you come in - I need help!

Does anybody have any opinions on his use of:
- colour
- tone
- shadow
- texture
- shape
- emotion
- etc...

?

Any (sensible) comments are welcomee :)
Thank You xx

Here is an image of the painting I am talking about: http://www.abcgallery.com/P/picasso/picasso204.html

Answer 1

The emotion is the most prominent factor in this painting for me. I would also call it a "dark" painting with its color, jagged, twisted lines. This is my opinion on the subject.

An interesting article to review is copied below:

"This is a study of how much pain can be communicated by a human face. It has the features of a specific person, Dora Maar, whom Picasso described as "always weeping". She was in fact his close collaborator in the time of his life when he was most involved with politics.

Let your eyes wander over the sharp surface and you are led by the jagged black lines to the picture's centre, her mouth and chin, where the flesh seems to have been peeled away by corrosive tears to reveal hard white bone. The handkerchief she stuffs in her mouth is like a shard of glass. Her eyes are black apertures. When you are inside this picture you are inside pain; it hits you like a punch in the stomach.

Picasso's insistence that we imagine ourselves into the excoriated face of this woman, into her dark eyes, was part of his response to seeing newspaper photographs of the Luftwaffe's bombing of Guernica on behalf of Franco in the Spanish civil war on April 26, 1937. This painting came at the end of the series of paintings, prints and drawings that Picasso made in protest. It has very personal, Spanish sources. In May 1937 Picasso's mother wrote to him from Barcelona that smoke from the burning city during the fighting made her eyes water. The Mater Dolorosa, the weeping Virgin, is a traditional image in Spanish art, often represented in lurid baroque sculptures with glass tears, like the very solid one that flows towards this woman's right ear. Picasso's father, an artist, made one for the family home.

This painting takes such associations and chews them to pulp. It is about the violence that we feel when we look at it, about translating the rawest human emotion into paint. Its origins lie in the tortured figures of Picasso's Guernica (1937), whose suffering is calculated to convey you beyond the photographs of the bombing to sense momentarily what it was to be there. In Guernica there is a screaming woman holding her dead baby, her tongue a dagger pointing at heaven. The baby's face is a cartoon of death. Picasso followed Guernica with his series of Weeping Woman paintings in which the woman's mourning continues, without end. She cries and cries. In different versions the Weeping Woman's face is crushed to an abject lump, twisted out of recognition." Extract from an article by Jonathan Jones, May 13, 2000, The Guardian:
http://www.inminds.co.uk/weeping-woman-picasso-1937.html

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=11871

An out of print, hardback book of Picasso's Weeping Woman may be purchased here starting for as little as $3.00. It seems that it would be a very good read.

http://www.amazon.com/Picasso-Weeping-Women-Rizzoli/dp/0847818004

Enjoy your project. Best wishes!

EDIT: Anyone involved in the art industry would certainly know that people critiquing various art is commonplace. This is one of the things that makes art interesting to people and brings people together. In every class I have ever taken—we have critiques and share ideas. In every gallery I have ever been in—we have critiques and share ideas. At most social gatherings of my friends and associates—we have critiques and share ideas. Even my husband and I, who are in the fine art publishing business and have a gallery—have critiques and share ideas, just between the two of us, many times a day, every day!

The information I cited to you is simply my short personal opinion, plus an article and link to a website where you may gather more history about the piece. It is not meant to write your GCSE mock art exam, and I am certain you know that. However, do not be afraid to cite what other people, like me, have shared regarding this piece and how it has moved them. This is a very powerful piece with an even more powerful history. You chose well, and do not let people like the answerer below intimidate you! Art is all about sharing its beauty and messages, and brings people from all around the world together.

And, Yahoo Answers is about sharing answers, helping people in their endeavors, and NOT about throwing out reprimands to inquiring students! I know you will do well on you mock exam, and keep on asking questions for the rest of your life!

Answer 2

Picasso did multiple versions of everything. He worked very hard. He always made 20 versions of every work. For ones that were more of a challenge, he did as many as 100 versions. He made more than 2 versions, he made many versions as was his habit to do.

Answer 3

You are supposed to practice this. Writing down what somebody else thinks isn't a good thing and when you have to do GCSE for real you will still be stumped.

Just write down your own opinion. Simply start by stating what you see.