La Suppliante by Pablo Picasso on friends-of-art.net

La Suppliante 1937

Gouacheand China ink on wood Musée Picasso, Paris, France
Oil on canvas

full
screen

normal
size

share
this

done
sharing

drag open an area on the image and click continue...

add new detail

title

description

publish on facebook

insights

comments

joshcasto: "La Suppliante" means "The Suppliant," denoting a person making a humble plea to someone in power or authority. Here we see a deformed character, ambiguously a man or a woman. As a man, he may be a priest, with his gelled hair and regal hood. As a woman, she likely is a nun, with her flowing hair and made-up face and juxtaposed breast, wearing the traditional tunic. But the tunic evidences a possible androgyny, since juxtaposed against the breast is an erection down below. Picasso is challenging the sexual dichotomy of Christianity, perhaps. The body is gray and segmented. It resembles musculoskeletal structure. The person raises their hands to the sky, begging to be made whole. But there is a hint of scorn in the eyes that could lead the viewer to interpret the hand raising as perhaps waving, as an attempt to swim to heaven, or to push it away. Rounding out the piece is the background. The blocks of colors represent examples of our subjective perception of "ideas." We all agree that some intangible element of a conscious moment is a "thing" with immutable qualities, yet there are so many examples where, even within our own incongruous realities, there are people who perceive things differently than the "normal" person -- people with synesthesia fit this description, for one. So the moral truths we humans are striving for are actually as unimportant as colors. Consciousness represents beauty, but ultimately there is no value to beauty. Consciousness, then, just is, and just as easily isn't. Therefore the person in the painting is completely broken, and its willing distortion of its own reality will prevent a restoration.