Pablo Picasso, "Two Women Running on a Beach, The Race"

   Today marks my 76th weekly entry on this blog.  I hope all readers have enjoyed the wide selections, and come to be regular visitors.   To mark this occasion I bring you a Picasso painting which always makes me smile, Two Women Running on a Beach.  I wonder if there is an artist more written about, than Pablo Picasso?  He was small in stature, but a giant in the Art world.

   Picasso created this painting in 1922, during his NeoClassical period.  He made his first trip to Italy in 1917 where first introduced to the classical traditions of the early Greeks and Romans.  Following World War I the general mood, was to abandon war for a happier time, and so for a short period European culture looked backward.   

   So here we have two women, in simple dress, hands clasped together with bodies barely an inch apart.  It is their postures that express the joy.  They are really striding out, with arms extended to catch the breeze.  If we could seem them closer, with faces toward us we could gain more understanding of their relationship.  But their voluptuous bodies and black hair streaming behind them, they look like replicates of each other....sister's maybe?   

   The original title labeled this as a race, which is a question to me.  The women are bound so close, it doesn't appear they are competing against each other.  Maybe there are more people in the scene, who we cannot see?  Us?   Are we there, running on the beach with them?  Sounds like fun.  

   The two figures consume most of the space with the seascape providing only a setting.  It is done in three simple rectangles:  the sand, the water, and the sky; and clouds in the sky probably indicate a nice breeze off the water.  The sun lite bodies and shadows suggest  we could be looking west, across the Mediterranean Sea and it is morning.

   Two Women Running on the Beach, (The Race) is a small painting, only 13 3/8" x 16 3/4".     It is part of the permanent collection of the Muse'e Picasso, Paris.  One source writes that it is a gouache on plywood, while the museum's book on their collection labels it an oil on masonite.   

   Make Art a part of your life, it's a beautiful thing to do. 

 

Comments

  1. Char HarguthSeptember 23, 2020 at 1:51 PM

    He surely wants to emphasize their feminism with each having one breast exposed. Their bodies appear to be Rueben influenced. Ample!! Does the woman on the right have a particularly long right leg?? I think they are celebrating something and feeling quite uninhibited. The sand structure is interesting. His paintings always seem to invoke more questions than answers. Maybe it's a double personality; a display of feminist freedom! It is a joyful scene. Colors are always dramatic.

    Yes, I do like the variety you are giving us! Thankyou.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Art Expert On LineSeptember 24, 2020 at 7:10 AM

    Double personality!! What a great thought! Maybe? Thanks, again, Char

    ReplyDelete

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