Portrait of Ambroise Vollard
Creation period
1909-1910
Dimensions
93x65 cm
93х65
93х65
Technique
oil on canvas
Collection
Exhibition
14
Open in app#1
Pablo Picasso
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard
#4
#2
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard is a real masterpiece of “analytical” Cubism. Vollard, a famous art collector and art connoisseur, was the first Parisian dealer to notice young Picasso’s works. He held the artist’s first exhibition in his gallery in 1901. The painting has an obviously close resemblance to the model. We can feel Vollard’s weighty sluggishness, looking at his eyes covered with heavy eyelids, the stiff line of his constrained mouth, the wide broken nose, the high forehead.
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About the shapes
#3
Every plane here appears to be in front of the neighboring one and behind it at the same time. The construction of shapes using almost monochromatic, smoky, and semitransparent planes is typical for “analytical” Cubism. These moving planes are unlocked, and they all flow into each other freely, form layers, and crystallize in front of our eyes. This is how the new form — Vollard’s face as the plastic and semantic center of the composition — is born from the chaos of primitive material. Like a magnet, it brings all the elements together, building a phantasmagoria of geometrical forms with a stringent rhythm.
#6
About the light
#7
There is no single source of light in the painting: every element has its own inner light. Light vibration makes us look at the painting like an equivalent of the continuously moving world, which creates the titanic image of Vollard from colors, as if they were pieces of a broken mirror.
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Portrait of Ambroise Vollard
Creation period
1909-1910
Dimensions
93x65 cm
93х65
93х65
Technique
oil on canvas
Collection
Exhibition
14
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