Weeping Woman Series - Portrait of Dora Maar or Picasso’s Self-portrait? -

Abstract

Weeping Woman series (1937) is regarded as a thematic continuation of the war tragedy depicted in Pablo Picasso’s epic painting Guernica (1937), probably the most famous symbol about the suffering of war that Picasso made in protest. Picasso followed Guernica with his series of Weeping Woman paintings in which the womans mourning continues without end. The theme of Weeping Woman series has now become universal symbols of suffering. It represents the grief of humanity, something that goes beyond a singular event, bombing in Guernica, Spain. It is about the violence that we feel when we look at it and about translating the rawest human emotion into paint. The series is very personal as well. The metamorphosis of actual women in his life served as the potent image of the weeping woman. The complex relationship with the women became a source of conflict. Ironically, the trouble between/with the women became a source of inspiration of his creativity. In focusing on the image of a woman crying, the artist was no longer painting the effects of the Spanish Civil War directly, but rather referring to a singular universal image of suffering. Combining his personal problems with the tragedy of war, he incorporated the distorted features of screaming, weeping woman to his composition. They portray faces distorted-almost destroyed-by inconsolable grief, Picasso’s own.