How does Picasso use style to pass his message in the painting “The Weeping Woman”? (Essay Sample)

STYLE USED IN THE WEEPING WOMAN BY PICASSO
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How does Picasso use style to pass his message in the painting “The Weeping Woman”?
Introduction
Artists present their work to the viewers in distinct ways by employing various styles. The differences in styles are the best way to make their work different from the subject matter and visual appeal. The style chosen depends on the conditions and context of the painting. It explores the use of color, form, composition, and the medium. The underlying principles of the artwork also define the style used. All the styles used in any work of art depend on each artist to produce the best work of art. On most occasions, artists use a definite style throughout their life as a trademark or may even change at some point if the condition requires. Picasso, a renowned painter, is not an exemption from this effect. He has done several paintings, but 'The Weeping Woman' stands out among his other paintings. This essay discusses several styles employed by Picasso in his painting of 'The Weeping Woman, to pass his message and obtain relevance.
Summary of what the work addresses in terms of methodology
The most outstanding style noticeable in Picasso’s painting work, “The Weeping Woman," is Cubism. The style involves three-dimensional viewpoints, hence the name cubism. The geometrical application of geometry is transferred to the work of art to help the viewer observe it and analyze it from various observation points. Features such as the face need to be observed from the frontal observation and the sides to make it more appealing and to grasp the painter's expressions into action dimensionally from the mind. It is the only way to understand the painting's communication from various imaginative interpretations per the observer's analytical skills. It can be observed from the exposed features like the face or the hidden ones in the background. Through Cubism's use, his cultural artwork is distinct to other artists in addressing his viewers. It facilitates both angular and overlapping observations. It pays much attention to form in combination with multiple viewpoints. Picasso depends greatly on CubismCubism to bring other art styles into the painting since it is the medium through which one can see the obvious and the hidden features.[Dvorak, Marta. "5. Text/image borderblur & Cubist realism." In Mavis Gallant, University of Toronto Press, (2020), pp. 115]
“The Weeping Woman” is a painting that represents a woman carrying a dead child. The dead child that the woman is holding in hand represents so many lives that had been lost during the Spanish civil war. The woman is weeping not only for the lives lost but also for those who have lost their relatives and friends during the war. The bombing affected the lives during the war, but the effect may be felt for years due to the chemical emissions that must have resulted from the explosion. Some individuals were not killed by the blast but were left with several deformities that may affect their lives to eternity. It was a painting done during the Spanish civil wars reacting to the bombing of Basque town. The Weeping Woman is drawn from the artist and photographer Dora Maar, the painter Picasso's mistress. Most of Picasso's work seems to be adaptive to a similar style, though with variations at some point depending on his interest at the time of painting.[Uzundemir, Özlem. "Reframing Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar in Grace Nichols's "Weeping Woman." Folklore/Edebiyat 24, no. 93 (2018): 76]
Discussion of the styles used by Picasso
Most of the Picasso paintings are multi-colored, with The Weeping Woman being arranged with a variation of colors. Picasso uses a well-balanced mixture of contrasting colors to represent varying things with homogenous colors to represent related ideas. The colors are separated with a thin, jagged black line to symbolize the distinction of colors in terms of meaning. Picasso utilizes the use of shape within the painting to depict changes of angular features on the face. The irregular arrangement of particular features on the face is well seen in Weeping Woman, separating the face in section each in a particular shape and size, making his Cubist effect more pronounced. The face is painted with overlapping fragments on the face to enable visualization from different standing points. To bring out the duo-dimensional representation of Picasso's paintings, he shades his paintings with linear perspectives to allow several interpretations of his work. He exploits the use of color and shape to pass a statement in his work. The face is done in bright color, symbolizing happiness, joy, and the better side of life. However, as the paintings move down towards the hand holding the handkerchief and the child, the brightness fades, and dark colors encroach the bright colors on the face. The fingers holding the handkerchief are dull, representing the woman's sorrowful nature, a face that was initially joyous.[Oba, Kenji. "Picasso's Paintings as Allusions: A Comparative Study of Abe Kōbō's The Ruined Map and Paul Auster's Ghosts." Trans-Humanities Journal 9, no. 3 (2016): 158] [Trifonas, Anthi, and Peter Pericles Trifonas. "The Politics of Seeing: Art and the Violence of Aesthetics." Handbook of Theory and Research in Cultural Studies and Education (2020): 689] [Schuldiner, M., 2016. Narrative Markers in Pablo Picasso’s Tragicomic Strip The Dream and Lie of Franco. European Comic Art, 9(2), pp.20]
The irregular delicate shape and size of the face in terms of geometry shows broken individuals emotionally and psychologically. The face with several parts misplaced indicates the broken state of the woman who represents society. The deformation and irregularity are symbols of outrage and pain that have engulfed the citizenry due to war. The image was painted by Picasso in the aftermaths of civil wars and has aided to a great extent in exploring Cubism'sCubism's idea. This style gives great input to cultural influence. In this painting on canvas, the author depicts contrasting situations with faces brightly masked to hide the woman's intended grief. He shows the suppressed inner feelings of sorrow with the pale grey coloring. The suffering and distress seriously deform the mouth for the several lives lost. Tears that are an outward show of the inner sorrows pour on the handkerchief, hard-pressed onto the surface in an attempt to hide the inner feelings.[Di Cicco, Francesca, Maarten WA Wijntjes, and Sylvia C. Pont. "Understanding gloss perception through the lens of art: Combining perception, image analysis, and painting recipes of 17th century painted grapes." Journal of Vision 19, no. 3 (2019): 7]
The eyes are represented with button-wide shapeless features painted crosswise instead of the normally black pupil that portrays life as a compilation of sorrows full of weeping from miseries of life. The use of form is completely distorted in the painting. Most features such as the mouth, eyes, and nose are distortedly twisted to show anguish. The texture depicted by the paintings has very little in the beautification of the painting. The only visible texture is the lines separating the colors and the natural texture left behind by the strokes from the painting brush.The paintings are attractive due to the extensive use of the colors well contrasted on the extensively bright foreground. The colors are saturated at the front part of the painting than the background. Picasso uses more color around the face to draw more attention to what is happening on the weeping woman's face than any other part of the painting. The face has the highest visual impact since it takes the most significant space of the painting.[Putri, Tieta, Ramakrishnan Mukundan, and Kourosh Neshatian. "Artistic style characterization and brush stroke modelling for non-photorealistic rendering." In 2017 International Conference on Image and Vision Computing New Zealand (IVCNZ), pp. 6]
Though most of Picasso's works are kno