The Mysterious Face of The Child

July 24, 2019

Barker Center,

12 Quincy Street,

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Dear Readers,

I might not be great with my words throughout the letter but I would like to share a little bit about how I wrote this draft. I started writing at the computer lab after having some food for brunch at the Leverett Hall. By the way, they served some delicious panini today! I wrote some stuff in short bursts while having my previous work reviewed by Li but I wrote most of the stuff in a long session after supper. I would not say it was a very productive day but overall, I think I could make some sense of the artwork. I usually do not like to admit this but screens could be very distracting. I would like to emphasize by replacing the “could be” in this with an “are”. Yes, they are very distracting. In a long session without any distraction I could focus more on details but in the short bursts I was constantly getting distracted by screens. I would say my argument was mostly driven by the mysterious face of the baby and trying to find out something beyond just the maternal love in the painting. The Mother and Child by Picasso not only depicts the maternal love but also shows the thankless job every mother is obliged to. I’m establishing my argument totally based on the look of which many readers might get different interpretation. I have had most troubles with the background which still might need some work.

Sincerely,

Yasir

Hamid Yasir

Harvard University

July 23, 2019

The Mysterious Face of The Child

Love can be toxic sometimes but maternal love could be an exception. From a regular point of view, Pablo Ruiz Picasso’s Mother and Child, an oil painting from 1901, shows a bond between the mother and the child, which is all about love and care. This brilliant piece of artwork was painted mostly using different shades of blue, also known as the color of depression but also

has some touch of brown and white. The artwork having resemblance to traditional Christian theme where Mary holds baby Jesus makes the interpretation seem more accurate – but when it comes to the unlikely adult face of the child; it tells a totally different story. Although maternal love is unconditional, it could be one-sided as well. The child having a grown-up face with no smile or sign of appreciation gives us an unusual evidence of how love could be different on different ends. By analyzing the child’s facial feature, use of darker shades of blue on most parts and the glow on the faces from the painting, we can see how the innocent charm is absent on its face, which many people might not notice. This is important because from my initial interpretation I could only see the altruism of the mother but did not quite figure out the selfishness of the child which Picasso probably tried to portray through the unusual adult-like facial features of the child.

The Sad Mother (alternative title) is a painting by Picasso which shows a middle-aged woman sitting in a corner while holding her baby. The painting presents the natural connection between a mother and a child. The smile on the mother’s face depicts the relief a mother feels while having their child close to them. The bottom of the picture appears to be an uneven mud surface painted in brown with soft touches of blue. Picasso uses straight lines of deep blue to give the surroundings of the subjects a sort of depressing look. Despite having the sense of depression in most parts of the painting, the glowing face of the mother smiling while holding the child suppresses the depression of the mother which she might have in her everyday life.

The unusual adult-like face of the child makes it appear to be selfish. The use of deep blue on the right side of the painting might represent the struggle of the mother in her everyday life. The painting is probably meant to show the feeling of maternal love and care and viewers might think that is it but I would like to say there is more to it. Children as we see; are innocent. They are to be taken care of. They could be sweet, messy and crybabies but when it comes to

having the warmth of a mother most of the children in generic mother and child paintings would have a face which portrays that they are secure at least if there is no smile. The child in Picasso’s painting shows no sign of it, rather has a clumsy adult face most probably depicting sign of ungratefulness. From my analysis of the face, I think Picasso tried to portray this – “ungratefulness” through an adult-like face on the child is because adults often tend to care less about their mothers or parents. A mother feels the same way about their offspring even when they grow old as they feel in the earlier days of the child. In other words, a person always stays a “child” to their mother regardless of their age. Despite the innocent nature of the overall painting which most people might see in it, Picasso probably wanted his viewers to see the adult-like ungrateful face of the child as a reference to the thankless job that most mothers enslave themselves to, and perhaps also the ungrateful nature of the human souls along with it.

There are a lot of paintings and other sort of artwork which are used to show the unconditional bond of love and care of a mother towards their child, as well as feeling of warmth the children depict while being in laps of their mothers. However, the unconditional love and support received by a child from their mother often never gets returned. The adult-faced child probably portrays that they deserve the unconditional love and there is nothing more to it. Adults often tend to forget about the love and support they receive from their parents and barely returns the favor. The child’s face is a perfect portrayal of selfishness and ungratefulness of the offspring. This painting probably seeks to take its place among its category of paintings and make its own mark on the viewer. Everyone has their own interpretation of stuff they see so; this point might not make sense to everyone.

Even though The Mother and Child represents an ideal artwork about the relationship between a mother and a child, Picasso’s work on it seems to be visualizing selfishness of humans at the same time celebrating their unconditional love and support. Using a blend of darker shades of blue with white and brown on the right side of the painting and lighter shades of blue, brown and white on the left side and the faces of the subjects having the most glow with the baby having a face of an adult, Picasso presents an extraordinary work of art to convey a metaphor about a thankless job that comes with depression and sometimes little to no return.

Works Cited:

Picasso, Pablo Ruiz. Mother and Child. 1901, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum,

Level 1, Room 1220, European Art, 19th–20th century, Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class

of 1906.

July 28, 2019

Barker Center,

12 Quincy Street,

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Dear Readers,

The main idea in this essay is the ungratefulness of human souls and an enslaving thankless job that most women involves themselves with i.e. motherhood. It was the same idea from the draft, but it had come out from a secondary body paragraph and make its way to the introduction. I am happy with the thesis pullout while revisioning. It was the most challenging part. I still need work on writing brief descriptions which I am not very good at yet. The most important thing I have learned from Essay One would be presenting the thesis statement. Drafting and revision strategies has made the most difference to my writing in this unit. I want to keep working on making my descriptions brief and sticking to the point.

Sincerely,

Yasir

Hamid Yasir

Harvard University

July 28, 2019

The Mysterious Face of The Child

Love can be toxic sometimes but maternal love could be an exception. To a casual observer, Pablo Ruiz Picasso’s Mother and Child, an oil painting from 1901, shows a bond between the mother and the child, which is all about love and care. The definition of “love and care” could be subjective but when it comes to mothers it is always unconditional. This brilliant piece of artwork was painted mostly using different shades of blue, also known as the color of depression but also has some touch of brown and white. Viewers might assume that the painting is about Christianity as it matches heavily with the traditional Christian theme of painting where Mary holds baby Jesus having a glow on their faces – but what they might skip is the unlikely adult face of the child. When it comes to that face the painting tells a totally different story. The child having a grown-up face with no smile or sign of appreciation gives us an unusual evidence of how love could be different on different ends. By analyzing the child’s facial feature, use of darker shades of blue on most parts and the glow on the faces from the painting, we can see how the innocent charm is absent on its face, which many viewers might not notice. Despite the innocent nature of the overall painting which most viewers might see in it, Picasso probably wanted his viewers to see the adult-like ungrateful face of the child as a reference to the thankless job that most mothers enslave themselves to, and perhaps also the ungrateful nature of the human souls along with it.

The Sad Mother (alternative title) is a painting by Picasso which shows a middle-aged woman sitting in a corner while holding her baby. The unusual adult-like face of the child makes it appear to be selfish. The use of deep blue on the right side of the painting might represent the struggle of the mother in her everyday life. The painting is probably meant to show the feeling of maternal love and care and viewers might think that is it. However, there is more to it. Children as we see; are innocent. They are to be taken care of. They could be sweet, messy and crybabies but when it comes to having the warmth of a mother most of the children in generic mother and child paintings would have a face which portrays that they are secure at least, if there is no smile. The child in Picasso’s painting shows no sign of it rather, has a clumsy adult face most probably depicting sign of ungratefulness. From my analysis of the face, I think Picasso tried to portray this – “ungratefulness” through an adult-like face on the child is because adults often tend to care less about their mothers or parents. A mother feels the same way about their off-spring even when they grow old as they feel in the earlier days of the child. In other words, a person always stays a “child” to their mother regardless their age. Picasso is trying to show the ungratefulness that most children show in their early years or sometimes even when they are adults. Through the face of the baby, Picasso tried to emphasize on the fact that most children would not give back the unconditional love and support that they accumulate by the time they grow up and how underappreciated the mothers are. The baby on the painting is mysterious. It is not like all other paintings of its category. The grown-up face depicts the sad reality about parenthood.

Picasso’s painting presents the natural connection between a mother and a child. The smile on the mother’s face depicts the relief a mother feels while having their child close to them. The bottom of the picture appears to be an uneven mud surface painted in brown with soft touches of blue. Picasso uses straight lines of deep blue to give the surroundings of the subjects a kind of depressing look. Despite having the sense of depression in most parts of the painting, the glowing face of the mother smiling while holding the child suppresses the depression of the mother which she might have in her everyday life. Unlike many paintings the two subjects in this painting i.e. the mother and the child tell two different stories, but they build up to each other. Picasso’s brilliant work had a correlation between the expressions of the subjects. The artist could portray the mother from a totally different angle from the child. The child in the painting depicts the ungratefulness of the children when they grow up to be an adult hence, an adult face. The mother however, is different. Picasso emphasized on the unconditional love through the kissing face. Where the baby’s adult face shows that it deserves the support because it is the mother’s responsibility anyway, the mother’s face shows the joy of being a mother. The face of the mother having a smile on it depicts that the baby is a relief from the cruel world outside. Picasso also tried to show how most of the children cuts the time short from their mother’s life. Here cutting the time short does not necessarily mean taking away time from their life resulting them to perish faster. It rather means that the mother compromises the time they should be having for themselves for the children. The body structure suggests the same thing. The baby is quite healthy in the painting than the mother. We can say the baby is healthy from the details of the painting where the face and the part of visible body of the baby seems to have much more weight to it than the mother. The mother seems to be giving away her body and soul for the baby. Picasso did a brilliant expression with the mother’s body showing how the child is sort of absorbing the mother’s body within it.

The background of the painting is very puzzling. The left side of the background has a lighter shade of blue whereas deeper shades of blue has been used on the right side of the background. The bottom looks uneven which could either be a mud floor or an inexpensive mattress. The background suggests the mother’s financial condition being poor and the room having nothing in it shows the extent of it; which is very high on the negatives. It suggests the mother most probably being in a shelter which limited supply of nourishment. The curtain in the background has a strange figure on it which to me looks like a torso of a cat-like figure but that might totally be a fluke. Everyone has their own interpretation of stuff they see so; this point might not make sense to everyone. Picasso might be trying to show a cat-figure to emphasize on his point of the child’s ungratefulness. Cats tend to be pampered a lot but when they are done with enjoying benefits they just do not show the affection towards the person anymore whereas dogs with the same kind of treatment would stay with a person forever. Anyway, that is another cat vs dog discussion which we might not get ourselves involved into. In between the curtain and the deep blue rectangle which seems to be a wall; there is a little use of greenish brown which is parallel to the baby’s hair. That tiny paint is the only glowing thing besides the faces of the subjects. The blue might represent the overall depression of the mother and the little bright color in the background might represent the relief she gets while holding her baby as the baby’s hair and the gap has the same color. The wall on the left has a partition in the middle of it having a different shade of blue on each side. This is again parallel to the faces of the subjects. This shows again how the mother gets a little relief while holding and providing warmth to the baby.

There are a lot of paintings and other sort of artwork which are used to show the unconditional bond of love and care of a mother towards their child, as well as feeling of warmth the children depict while being in laps of their mothers. They depict how sacred the relationship between a mother and child is. However, the unconditional love and support received by a child from their mother often never gets returned. The adult-faced child probably portrays that they deserve the unconditional love and there is nothing more to it. Adults often tend to forget about the love and support they receive from their parents and barely returns the favor. The child’s face is a perfect portrayal of selfishness and ungratefulness of the offspring. This painting probably seeks to take its place among its category of paintings and make its own mark on the viewer.

The face of the baby is indeed strange, and it is not a coincidence on the painting. It is important because the strange face gives the viewers a totally different interpretation of the whole painting; different from the causal views. Picasso wanted his viewers to see the face of the baby and get it as a reference of the underappreciated job that enslaves most mothers for life and the ungrateful nature of the humans. Even though The Mother and Child represents an ideal artwork about the relationship between a mother and a child, Picasso’s work on it seems to be visualizing selfishness of humans at the same time celebrating their unconditional love and support. Using a blend of darker shades of blue with white and brown on the right side of the painting and lighter shades of blue, brown and white on the left side and the faces of the subjects having the most glow with the baby having a face of an adult, Picasso presents an extraordinary work of art to convey a metaphor about a thankless job that comes with depression and sometimes little to no return i.e. parenthood.