Seated Bather

        In France during 1930, Pablo Picasso painted Seated Bather.  The style of painting used in the making of the Seated Bather is known as cubism.  This painting by Picasso has a surreal-esque and very unnerving nature.  Picasso's use of colors and contrast in his fine work display his mood.  Study of this painting will show the way he connected cubism with the surrealist movement.

        In this painting Picasso used a relatively new and unique style of painting called cubism, which is an abstract rendering of natural forms into geometric shapes and forms.  When you look at the painting, it looks like a woman sitting except there is something very odd about it, the woman does not look right at all.  Her head is sectioned off into pieces, her eyes are merely extensions of the top part of the head, her mouth is sideways and has no jaw connected to the face.  The cubism style Picasso used is closely related to surrealism.

        Seated Bather, is a painting that boarders on disturbing and almost surreal.  The way the woman's body seems to flow like water in this painting is very similar to the clocks in The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí.

The woman appears to be a sculpture of wood, carved in a twisted and evil fashion.  She is sitting in a sexually suggestive manner with her legs spread apart revealing everything.  Seated Bather is almost sinister, and it makes you wonder what Picasso was thinking.  We may never know precisely what he was feeling but we may find pieces to the puzzle by way of his use of shade and hue.

        Picasso's mood during the painting of Seated Bather is shown as clues, hidden deep within his artwork.  Picasso used natural colors for the woman and the setting.  The natural colors of the woman cause the viewer, if only for a second, to feel the painting has a sense of realism.  The subtle color and flow of the water show that Picasso most likely was not rushed and felt calm and relaxed.  Picasso's sharp contrast of color during the forming of the legs and head he was trying to make a point that this is how it is supposed to look.  Contrasting is such a manner can be perceived as his confidence in his art.

        Currently Picasso's Seated Bather is located on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  As we look at the painting, we can fully see the cubism in the painting.  Picasso stated he was not an artist of the surrealist movement but his painting shows that he, at least used some of the aspects for Seated Bather.  Picasso's emotion is found in his paintings and is the basis for his inspiration during the production of this great piece of art.  Picasso's artwork here is a perfect demonstration of how someone can continuously ride the line between cubism and surrealism, all the while making artwork that outlasts and overshadows his colleagues during a time of a new art outbreak.