Absinthe Drinker

Picasso, Pablo. 1881-1973

유화 1901년

 

피카소는 이 그림을 1901년 가을에 그렸다. 그 당시 피카소 22세로 파리에 두번째로 체류 중이었다. 카페에서 고독과 고립, 공허에 잠긴 남자라는 주제는 19세기 후반 프랑스 미술계에서 흔한 주제였고 드가나 로트렉-피카소가 많이 존경했던-의 작품에서도 찾아볼 수 있다.

But in the paintings by the young Spaniard the theme acquired a previously unknown sense of drama. Our lonely heroine sits at a table in a cafe, the background a dirty-red wall which reinforces the sense of discomfort. Emphasizing the flatness of the canvas, the colour of the walls and the bluish tone of the marble table seem to press the space inwards, around the woman, enclosing her in her hopeless loneliness. In the pose of the absinthe brinker, in her face, we can identify the outcast: the totally enclosed space of her body, the expressive distortion of the right hand, seem to indicate the tension of a coiled spring. Picasso strictly boxed in the immobile face - the hand acts as a support, its precise perpendicular running through the imperfect oval of the figure, while a protecting hand clasps the shoulder. Everything reinforces the sense of inner tension and cuts the figure off from the world around. On the basis of real observations in a cafe Picasso created a generalised and timeless symbol of the tragedy of life. On the back of the painting, concealed beneath heavy overpainting in blue and yellow, is a woman's head, probably a fragment of a work which did not satisfy the artist.