Picasso - Vingt Poemes

Picasso’s Vingt Poèmes illustrate twenty of the most romantic and melancholy sonnets written by Spain’s much loved 16th century poet Luis de Gongora y Argote. Working with the publisher Colonna and master printer Lacouriere, Picasso created images to decorate and illuminate the margins of his hand written poetry, reminiscent of medieval texts. The ink in the images and the text darken and lighten, gets thicker and thinner according to the mood of the poetry. The images merge with the hand written poetry where mistakes are scratched out but are left on the page and form a part of the image The twenty illustrated sonnets in Vingt Poèmes are each preceeded by twenty elegant images of women, the whole work being in black and white. There seems little doubt that Gongora of all his livre d’artiste was closest to Picasso’s heart, his only hand written book.

Femme aux Longs Cheveux is the profile of a beautiful woman with the tiny wedge of a face seemingly emerging from a cloud which is a luxurious hair. The poem that follows this image Soneto X itself is bordered on each side by two further beautiful young women, in an embellishment called remarqe The left profile image hints at royalty with her crown an appearance of majesty. The right hand young naked woman whose left side emerges from the text, which itself forms the outline of the left leg. Picasso combined a complicated form of sugar lift aquatint with traditional dry point etching for the women’s heads.