23. Female Bullfighter, III

In Female Bullfighter, III, we are presented with a print that, in the context of the Suite Vollard, is rather thematically elusive, as it does not fit squarely into one of Bolliger’s five sections (hence his placement under the “miscellaneous” heading). However, in the context of Picasso’s life, this print is quite significant. In the background, the hands that reach up above the arena’s walls suggest an active audience and the notion of spectacle; there’s the physicality of the brutish animals and the vulnerability of the nude woman, our “female bullfighter”; there’s the reference to the famous Spanish tradition of bullfighting and its recognized relevance to the artist; and there are the lines that crash across the plane like angry strikes of lighting, resembling the marks of a cancelled plate. Within the Suite Vollard, this print comments on the themes of chaos versus order, as seen in the contrast between the decorum of the bullfight’s practice and the chaotic depiction, as well as on the opposition between classical and primitive art as seen in the reclining woman whose upper body resembles the Hellenistic Sleeping Ariadne, yet her legs allude to a Cycladic figurine. This print perhaps also expresses Picasso’s emotional turmoil during this time, the result of his affair and eventual separation from his wife, Olga Khokhlova. Perhaps Picasso, who so deeply connected with the symbol of the bull, chose to depict himself as the wounded yet still dominant and sexual animal, his devastated yet fleeing wife Olga as the floundering, angry horse, and his young lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter as the big-breasted and powerless nude female at the bottom of the page. Through such symbolism and intentional ugliness, this print becomes a window into Picasso’s life, personal struggle, and the ways with which he expressed himself through his art.

Kat Restrepo ’18