Nude (Mother)

Picasso’s drawing of a female nude is one of the finest drawings of Analytical Cubism. In all probability, the drawing served as a preparatory study for the figural painting Female Nude made in spring 1910. The traditional term Analytical Cubism does not express the specific nature of Picasso’s idiom in this drawing. Here, we are entering the world of “the re−invention of anatomy” and are headed towards “open” form that will align the body with the surrounding space. Picasso’s “new anatomy” was a way of discovering a new relationship between corporality and reality. The creation of the Cubist figure meant a constant quest for the meaning and role of the figure and the object in a new spatial, or planar, concept. The dynamism of corporal and spatial relations was to represent the new dynamism of modern visuality.