Portraiture Lesson

Portraits can represent individuals in many different ways. A portrait can be a literal representation or it can represent a person sosymbolically. It can capture a person’s physical characteristics and/or attempt to represent his or her personality, ideas, or emotions.These three portraits by Picasso represent a range of styles, from representational to abstract. When Picasso was nineteen years old, he went to Paris. At the time, Paris was the center ofthe art world.Picasso was excited by the city’s fast pace and diversity,and he began to includestreet scenes and scenes of Parisian nightlife in his work. It is likely that the woman in this picture was someone that Picasso saw on the street or met briefly in a music hall.