Pablo Picasso's Head of a Woman

While visiting the Norton Museum, there were two works of art that were very interesting. The first work of art is a sculpture by Pablo Picasso called, Head of a Woman (Fernande). It was made in 1909 when he was in Paris. When he made this sculpture he was in the cubism period. Picasso sculpted this sculpture of bronze.

While looking at this sculpture it is transformed every time you move your own head, walk around it, and bend closer. It just has a way of changing shape. While looking at it, it first appeared to me as a man or some kind of creature. Looking at the name, one would realize what the sculpture is. The sculpture was a woman. It has a lot of rough and sharp points, but the surface was very smooth. It is kind of disturbing on how Picasso seems to see beneath the skin. He reveals the tendons in Fernande's neck. The fractured texture of Fernande's face, her hair a system of gorges and upland ridges, is a metaphor for the way we experience another person. (Hughs) Like Rembrandt's most intimate portraits, it is about the mystery of being close to another human being. (Cooper) Picasso makes you recognize this by inviting your eye down into those channels and crevices, until you feel you are inside Fernande's head. You can never exhaust the richness of this head. (Hughs)

The subject of this sculpture is Fernande Olivier. She was Picasso's lover. Fernande’s real name was Amelie Lang. She had worked as an artist's model in Montmartre and was an aspiring painter. They had spent the summer of 1909 in the Spanish mountains, where Picasso painted Fernande in a similarly way. He made this head almost as soon as he returned to Paris. Picasso spoke about being caught by her beauty and began a long term relationship with Fernande Olivier; however by 1909, when he made this head the strain in their relationship was showing. By 1912, the relationship had ended.

Picasso broke the tradition in 1909 in creating Head of a Woman (Fernande). It is considered the first cubist sculpture. Cubism was an art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture in the early 20th century. The idea of cubism is that instead of viewing subjects from a single fixed angle, the artist breaks them up into several different aspects/faces of the subject so they can be seen simultaneously. (Penrose) He molded Fernande's head in clay, and then made two plaster casts from which...

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...experimented all that he could.

Pablo Picasso and Raoul Dufy both had a very different vision than any artist back in their time had. They both wanted to show that art could be different, but at the same time also beautiful. However, not everyone back in their time thought it was beautiful. In their works they both used women to show their different style. Picasso used the method of Cubism and Dufy used the method of Fauvism. They both wanted to show how they thought that a woman should look to portray their different visions. These two works of art are both very different because, Picasso made his woman dark and exaggerated and not so pleasing to the eye. Meanwhile Dufy wanted to show the beauty and grace of his woman with his colors. They both show their brilliance by the way they portray their women.

Works Cited Page

Bailey, Scott. Last of the Fauves. 2000. 10 Jan.

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Shiva, Vandana. Biography of Raoul Dufy. 1997. 25 April.

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Peterson, Susan. Favism. 1999. 20 Mar.

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Hughs, Robert. Head of a Woman (Fernande), Picasso (1909). 2002. 8 June.

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Cooper, Douglas. Life of Pablo Picasso. 2001. 11 Dec.

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Penrose, Roland. Cubism. 2000. 10 Jan.

2005