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 Ð'Ð... 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