Special Exhibitions
Picasso: The Artist's Studio
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Special Exhibitions |
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Picasso: The Artist's Studio |
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Preparatory Drawing for "La Vie," 1903 Preparatory Drawing for "La Vie," 1903Conté crayon on paper Museu Picasso, Barcelona [Cat. no. 6] ©2001 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York This drawing is one of Picasso's four surviving preparatory studies for La Vie (Life). In all four drawings Picasso depicted himself as the artist, standing between a naked woman and a painting on an easel. A bearded man, presumably another bohemian artist (judging by his long hair and disheveled appearance), enters the studio from the right and gestures toward Picasso as if engaging him in conversation. Unlike the painted version of this subject, the naked woman who embraces Picasso has long hair-a symbol of sexual availability or fertility-and a swollen abdomen, indicating pregnancy. X-radiographs of the painting reveal that Picasso continued to portray himself as the artist in the early stages of the composition, but he later replaced his features with those of Carles Casagemas, a former companion and fellow artist who had committed suicide in 1901. Picasso's precise reasons for making these alterations remain a matter of intense speculation. However, this and other drawings indicate that his changes were not made merely for aesthetic reasons but, rather, as part of a prolonged process of developing the painting's symbolic content. Page 3 of 9 | On the next page: Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906 |
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