Three Women by Pablo Picasso

This monumental work stands at the dawn of an aesthetic upheaval that will forever change the course of Western pictorial creation in the contemporary era. The daring precursor Picasso Pablo realizes here a revolutionary anatomical study entitled “Three Women” which lays the geometric foundations of the deconstruction of forms. Through this group of sculptural figures, the artist operates a radical break with traditional academic realism. The volumes simplify and merge with the surrounding space.

Three naked female figures, with robust and angular shapes, are represented in intertwined postures against a dark background tinged with blue and green. Their bodies, painted in shades of ocher, burnt Sienna, and terracotta red, are modeled like faceted blocks of stone or carved wood. The woman in the center raises her arms behind her tilted head, while the one on the left seems to lean against her shoulder. The faces, devoid of realistic details, recall primitive African masks with closed eyelids. The bright light strikes the salient planes, accentuating the sculptural relief of the composition.

The painter testifies to an absolutely exceptional artisanal expertise in the application of colored hatchings and geometric facets to modulate the three-dimensional volume. This innovative technique of sculpting on canvas shows a power of physical and intellectual execution completely out of the ordinary, which marks the birth of modern art.