Orsay

The absinthe drinker

Pablo Picasso. 1901.

Picasso made this painting in autumn 1901, during his second trip to Paris, when he was only 22 years old.

The theme of loneliness, isolation and emptiness in a cafe is not new. In the second half of the 19th century, it can be found in the works of Degas or Toulouse-Lautrec. But in the paintings of the young Spanish painter, we did not find that sense of drama until then.

Our lonely heroine sits at a coffee table where the background is diffuse. The inner space enclosing the woman in her desperate solitude. The expressive distortion of the right hand, seem to redouble the inner tension.