Portrait of sylvette

Pablo Picasso ” Portrait of Sylvette” The piece of art that was studied is ” Portrait of Sylvette” by Pablo Picasso, of Spanish decent originating from 1881-1954. This portrait is oil on canvas and measures approximately 28 inches wide by 42 inches high. It was a gift of the estate of Tom Slick 1973. 36. Picasso utilizes many classical and controlled lines for most of the art work. He uses these precise lines to express the mathematical proportions and sections of various objects, such as the wall, free space, desk, and young girl. More specially, the organized horizontal and vertical lines create what is seen to be each point connecting to another by its rigorous, yet defined look. Through out his work, he mainly uses semi-thick ½ inch lines in width to bring out boldness and deep emotion of the environment and its’ surroundings. In drawing the desk, he uses massive rectangular shapes to create a geometrical table in which is simply put together in ingenious structure and balance. On the chair, Picasso uses small cross-hatching lines to give the chairs frame a more textured and realistic feel. These stand out tremendously and give a sense of surreal ness to the painting. Implied, curvaceous lines are woven into the young women’s figure as if the chair was made just for her medium bone structure. The young woman’s body has been created with 1/3 inch thick, systematic lines that form the cubistic shaping of her frame. Focusing on the girl’s body structure, Picasso uses many geometrical shapes such as, cubes, triangles, and squares to form her particular silhouette. The dress is segmented into various shapes ranging from small triangles to large awkward cubes. Even though most of his work is very ratiocinative and straight forward, he surprisingly uses free-hand movement when drawing her hands. He uses expressive lines to compliment the practical feeling and life in human’s hands. Implied lines and arranging textures are used to manipulate the nature of her surrealistic hair strands. Small exact lines are used to create facial features and expressions that visualize the young girl as having a straight facial expression, by not expressing any harmonious expressions. Pablo Picasso dominates his work with massive geometrical shapes and rationally organized lines. Picasso does not use a wide scale of colors; however he does use hues such as black, white, charcoal, and gray. It seems that these hues definitely bring the art to life as if he was using vibrant rich colors. By using the gray scale, many illusions are developed throughout the work by implementing depth, deep space and shadows. These illusions give the viewer greater detail and this becomes visual realism of the objects. Value, relative to lightness and darkness, it seems as if he is using darkness as the heavy; dominate color that is taking most of the attention away from the viewer. Light and dark have a strong symbolic meaning in this artwork. He uses the technique called chiaroscuro to balance the light and the various shades in the portrait. The painting illustrates patches of charcoal-like areas and gray smudges to distinguish deep and dark patterns that manipulate the objects into not receiving any white light. The background has a large amount of space that seems highlighted to assume that there is an abundance of light coming though in that particular direction. Perceived white light is used against the young girl’s pony tail from the highlights that are coming from the back wall to the right of the girl. He uses color intensity by its dullness and brightness to make certain objects appear fainter or bolder. Picasso utilizes various shades of colors to define the kind of light that is being used to show the viewer the imagined depths and value in this portrait. Visual texture is definitely used in this portrait because the young girl’s hair is shown to have a soft, smooth texture by the way he shapes and forms the implied lines. The values of the colors are shown in the hair as the long hair flows down her back blending into the light cross-hatching of the chair. The shades of value on her face show a mute expression as if she was concentrating with no emotion. The focal point of this picture is the young girl sitting down looking off in front of her. The deep hues and shades shape the girl instantly, grabbing the viewer’s attention especially by her uniquely formed eyes. As we see what the focal point is, the portrait allows our eyes to move freely around to view and recognize the surroundings and significance of the composition as a whole. The scale used in this portrait is too small because the objects are not fully adjusted to the working space. The whole composition itself does not seem proportioned because the young girl inhabits the majority of the work space; however the internal proportions are balanced and accurate. Picasso made these principles of design un- proportioned because he wanted to over exaggerate the young girl as being the center of attention, which in my opinion he did. The portrait seems to be asymmetrically balanced, because the light depths in the back of the portrait are absorbing the majority of the space, as the girl is slightly more to the left of the painting, which off sets the portrait making it not symmetrically balanced. Picasso introduced and revisited analytic cubism in the muted yet stunning color tying in with a portrait developed from fractured formation .