The Rainbow Woman

About this poem

NOTES ABOUT THE POEM An Ekphrastic poem is a description of a painting. My poem is a written analysis of the artwork entitled 'Femme au béret rouge-orange' belonging to the cubist painter Pablo Picasso, who was a Spanish painter and a sculptor during the 20th century. His paintings are famous in the world. His work has been influenced by the Blue and the Rose period, and then by the Cubist period. The first teacher of Pablo Picasso was his father, but he continued to study in Barcelona and in Paris, where important contemporary painters became his friends. After going to Italy, in 1917, he started to paint in a neoclassical and a surrealist style. After reaching the number of 50,000 works, Pablo Picasso died in France, in 1973. Picasso saw Marie-Thérèse leaving the Metro and invited this 17-year-old woman at his studio a few days later. Her visit gave way to a deep love affair which would last ten years. At that time, Picasso was married Olga Khokhlova and had a son, Paul. Even separated in 1935, he remained legally married for 20 years, until Olga died. Marie-Thérèse gave birth to their child Maya, in late 1935. Femme au béret rouge-orange was painted in January 1938." She has no inconvenient reality; she reflected the cosmos. If it was a beautiful day, the clear blue sky reminded him of her eyes. The flight of a bird symbolized for him the freedom of their relationship. And over a period of eight or nine years, her image found its way into a great body of his work in painting, drawing, sculpture, and engraving" (Françoise Gilot about the painting of Picasso in The Artist and his Muses (exhibition catalogue), Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery,2016, pp.60-61). more »