A Closer Look:

Packed with characters, energy and frivolity, Personnages evokes a Bacchanalian romp which is at once humorous and deeply psychological.

The scene’s assemblage of characters, body parts and objects are unhampered by a specific narrative, gaining vitality and gravitas through their complex connections and symbolic associations.

Cyclopean perspective

The scene’s protagonist is introduced to the left. He possesses the visual hallmarks of a cyclops, with his single staring eye, flat nose, thick brow, elephantine hands and scruffy beard rendered in thick strokes of black ink.

This character also recalls Picasso’s ‘barbu’ characters—rustic, bearded barbarians that feature frequently in his ceramic work.

The female nude

The cyclops looks across the sheet towards a nude woman on the right, who meets his gaze in return. The sequential layers of her face are united beneath her curly hair and betray a psychological intensity.

She is likely to be a stand-in for Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s final wife and muse. Roque was ubiquitous in Picasso’s work from this period, often imbuing it with twisting threads of strength and sensuality, and of vulnerability and mystery.

The caryatid archetype

Utilising the visual imagery of the Classical world, Picasso renders the woman’s torso as a column, marked by its carved vertical lines and cylindrical ‘foot’, which forms a halo around—and a visual pun of—her feet.

In the Classical world, columns were often associated with femininity. Becoming both anatomy and architecture, the nude resembles a caryatid, a hybrid female sculpture-column from ancient Greek and Roman temples. She holds and anchors the construction of the scene, forming a counterweight to the bulky cyclops, who is invited to worship in her figurative temple.

A mirror to the soul

The connection between these two characters is amplified by the striking eye reflected in a mirror held in the cyclops’ left hand. Mirrors are a key artist’s tool for self-portraits, thereby invoking duality and introspection, as well as Picasso’s unwavering curiosity into his own soul.

The one-eyed protagonist presents an irony, as while his vision is hampered in terms of space and depth, we the viewers are treated to the scene’s vast angles and perspectives. This relates to Picasso’s principle of simultaneity, the desire to grasp reality for all directions at once.

Cubist erotica

Picasso’s Cubism infuses this scene with a voyeuristic tone, as we are only given tantalising glimpses of the female inhabitants’ bodies. Like the cyclops, we must peek and spy through gaps and crevices to catch these fleeting views.

The artist therefore transforms the tenets of abstraction into the filmic segments of an erotic fantasy.

The artist as voyeur

The raised thumb of the cyclops places him in the position of the artist, recalling a common gesture by which a painter orders the scale and perspective of the scene before them.

This mimics one of Picasso’s favourite formats, by which he would present an artist, often on the left, gazing upon his nude female subject, typically on the right. He experimented by substituting in different male archetypes for the artist, including musketeers, baboons and minotaurs, each one typified by its relentless gaze and privileged vantage point.

Classical capers

Between the protagonists, vignettes of debauchery emerge. Here, a smirking faun crawls mischievously toward a reclining nude woman.

To its left, a bearded satyr lies back, his round paunch sprouting into two thick legs, one of which ends in a buckled shoe, a possible nod to Picasso’s musketeer archetype.

The creators of the past

To the upper centre, a faun wearing a wreath stares out at the viewer with a sly smile: a seeming invitation to join the fray.

Picasso’s inclusion of satyrs and fauns, the impish followers of Dionysus, equates him with ancient Greek and Roman painters who depicted their comedic hijinks on murals and vases. In measuring himself against the artistic traditions of the past, Picasso was consciously aligning himself with the great creators of history.

Satirical drawings

The repeated male profile forms to the top of the composition echo the satirical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, as well as of 19^th century French caricaturists such as Honoré Daumier, adapting their timeless witty takes on class and refinement.

The creative process

This dynamic patchwork of characters and elements appear as studies that are spontaneously woven into a harmonious composition. This betrays the immediacy and endless discovery of Picasso’s creative process.

Indeed, the four separate dates and annotations added to the lower right illustrate that Picasso revisited this drawing on separate occasions, allowing the idea to morph and precipitate.

Technical mastery

Picasso utilised a range of media and drawing techniques, resulting in the work’s unique combination of bold strokes, hazy textures and gossamer thin lines. The areas of wash generate gradation and chiaroscuro, shrouding portions of the scene in a dreamlike, seductive veil.

Personnages thereby forms a celebration of Picasso’s deftness as a draughtsman as well as his confident painterly touch during this mature period of his career.

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