How does this artwork elucidate its Description?
Femme aux Bras Croisés is a portrait of a woman sitting in a prison cell. The image conveys an atmosphere of misery and torment, which is achieved by the woman's body posture and the starkness of her surroundings. Her crossed arms and blank stare illustrate her isolation, while her physical and emotional disconnection reflects her social isolation.
It is believed that the painting was begun in France in the second half of 1901 and then moved to Spain, where Picasso made changes to the composition. This was confirmed by x-ray, which showed that Picasso had repainted the woman's hair over a previous hood.In her 1957 book Pablo Picasso, Antonina Vallentin discusses the haunting qualities of this painting. She considers the subject to be an inmate who recently attempted suicide and now carries the blank but menacing stare of those unfortunates who found themselves at Saint-Lazare hospital-prison during the early 1900s.Picasso often visited the Saint-Lazare hospital-prison in Paris in the second half of 1901 to find models for his paintings. John Richardson commented that, "The Saint-Lazare women were victims of society nobody would deny, but they are also to some extent Picasso's victims. There is a hint of eroticism, even sadism, to their portrayal... Years later Picasso would describe women with some relish as 'suffering machines'. No wonder there is more romantic agony than social criticism to Blue period imagery".Picasso used monochromatic colour to reinforce the sense of isolation and despair in his paintings. The dominant use of blue tones is particularly significant. Juan-Eduardo Cirlot comments that, "It is a blue which makes us think of night, but it is the symbol rather of maternal protection, of rest and forgetful dreams to soothe the sufferings of humble people, than of dark hostile power. Picasso has always been deeply humanitarian... [and] sensitive to human suffering, and he seems to have been strongly impelled to translate it into paint."
Saint-Lazare hospital-prison monochromatic colour Pablo Picasso