Picasso, Pablo (1881-1973)
Yo (Self Portrait)
1901
Oil on cardboard mounted on wood, 51.4 x 31.8 cm
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Marilee Talkington: Pablo Picasso seems to move toward us out of the darkness in this powerful Self Portrait (Yo), from 1901. It measures about one and a half feet high by a foot wide and is oil paint on cardboard.
Picasso’s head and torso fill the composition. His body is centered, shoulders reaching the left and right edges, with the painting ending just above his waist along the bottom edge. He faces us, the viewers, with a powerful gaze: eyes wide, pupils dark and round, and arched eyebrows emphasizing his focus. The whites of his eyes are the brightest points in this painting, along with his pale skin. With the rosy flush along his nose, cheeks, and ears, his eyes hold our attention.
His face is sharply contoured, with well-defined cheekbones and a strong jawline outlined in dark pigments. Thick horizontal brushstrokes on his forehead broaden his brow and give it definition. His sparse moustache is painted with thin, vertical, dark lines along his upper lip. This contrasts the thick dark hair painted in broad blue strokes encircling his head, which appears matted, as if it were a single solid form blending into the dark background. In the upper half of the painting, behind Picasso, the background is a blend of greens, blues, and black paint in thick vertical strokes. Along the lower edges of the painting, the brown cardboard support is visible between strokes.
The sharp outlines in Picasso’s face mirror the sharp brushstrokes framing his torso. Strokes in a soft white color form a stiff collar about an inch high that frames his neck. Below, dark horizontal lines circle and outline the top edge of his black coat. The dark paint continues downward in a smooth application onto his chest, then blends with dark green and ochre toward the center-bottom edge of the painting.
On his torso, Picasso applied dark yellow accents of several tiny vertical dashes and longer streaks. The longer streaks create a prominent line moving vertically downward along the left edge of his lapel (on the viewer’s right). At about its midpoint, the line shifts left then down again to outline the lapel’s shape, before ending a few inches from the bottom edge of the composition. Picasso’s right shoulder (to the viewer’s left) is defined with a series of layered, light blue, vertical lines, with a few that extend diagonally along the shoulder’s top edge toward the left of the composition.
Additional stray lines of light blue, each about an inch long, are applied horizontally and vertically, some overlapping, along the lower-right side of the painting. Paired with the brown color of the exposed cardboard support, they partially obscure Picasso’s left arm and torso (on the viewer’s right).
One rogue stroke of white paint zigzags vertically above Picasso’s right shoulder (to the viewer’s left), about an inch from the left edge of the composition. It stands out against the dark background.
In the bottom-right corner is Picasso’s underlined signature in black, with white highlights. (Guggenheim)