ART AND IMAGES IN PSYCHIATRY

SECTION EDITOR: JAMES C. HARRIS, MD Picasso’s Weeping Woman I couldn’t make a portrait of her laughing. For me she’s the weeping woman. For years I’ve painted [Dora Maar] in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either, just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. It was the deep reality, not the superficial one. Pablo Picasso1(p122)

ORA MAAR (1907-1997), birth to various snakes and disembod- ments, some taken from Picasso’s ear- Pablo Picasso’s weeping ied heads. Franco then is transformed lier satirical etchings about Franco, as it woman (epigraph), col- into half monster, half pig. The wounded became a powerful statement about the laborated with him in the are shown among burning buildings in horror of the indiscriminate killing of ci- creationD of his masterpiece, Guernica,2 a subsequent frame. Franco’s head is ap- vilians to demoralize the Basque people, his vivid condemnation of war commis- pended to a horse; he confronts an an- in total war! Dora lived near Picasso’s stu- sioned for the Spanish Pavilion in the gry bull. After a hiatus of several months, dio in the late 1930s and during the sub- 1937 Universal Exposition in Paris to in June of that year, Picasso completed sequent Nazi occupation of France. protest bombing of civilians in Spain. the last 4 etchings in the series. These Dora was demoralized by the Basque Dora (born Henriette Theodora final images focus on the victims of the tragedy and revealed her abject sorrow to Markovic´), a well-known photogra- atrocities of war. The fifteenth image is Picasso. In Guernica, he characterized not pher3-5 and member of the Surrealist ni- a weeping woman with disheveled hair only the emotional face of Dora (her hilist group, photographed Guernica reaching up in despair; burning phallic prominent forehead, eyes, and elon- throughout its gen- gated fingers) but esis until it was com- also Marie-The´rèse, plete (Figure 1). his distraught, aban- Her profile is found doned, and grieving in the woman in the mistress (rounded center who holds face with almond the lamp that draws eyes), and his an- attention to the hor- gry wife, Olga (the ror that is unfold- sharp tongue of the ing. She contrib- horse). Yet despite uted to the painting the emotions shown of the dying horse in the faces of these that is emblematic of women, no tears are the suffering of the shed in Guernica. Pi- victims. Having casso toyed with lived in Argentina as adding a single red a child, Dora spoke tear falling from an Figure 1. Guernica, 1937. fluent Spanish, al- eye of the wailing lowing her, unlike shapes are shown behind her. The final mother who holds Picasso’s wife and other mistresses, to etching depicts 2 distraught children, her dead child but in the end blotted it easily converse with him in his native their father dead, who are clinging to out. Thus, the final painting is mono- tongue. A committed leftist who was ve- their mother. chrome gray and documents, in a sense, hemently opposed to General Fran- Dora Maar had helped find the large the first phase of grief: shock and dis- cisco Franco’s Nationalist insurrection studio for Picasso in Paris where Guer- belief at one’s loss. Tears flow later, and in Spain, she emotionally engaged Pi- nica was completed. Located at 7, rue des these are mostly shown later in images casso and contributed to his angst about Grands Augustins, the building had been of Dora (cover), whose tears were there the aerial murder of civilians by the Ger- the fictional location of Honore´ de Bal- for Picasso to record. man Condor Legion at Guernica, the leg- zac’s short story Le Chef-d’oeuvre in- It was Dora who continually re- endary capital of the Basque people in connu (The Unknown Masterpiece).3 In it, minded Picasso of the tragedy. For Spain. Picasso was intrigued by her in- the painter Frenhofer is obsessed with the months after the painting was sent for tellectual and emotional expressive- thought of representing the absolute on exhibition at the Spanish Pavilion in the ness and seemingly could not stop paint- his canvas; the more obsessed he be- 1937 Universal Exposition in Paris, Pi- ing her.3 comes, the less recognizable is his sub- casso’s efforts focused on painting faces Picasso’s Guernica draws on his se- ject. He finally destroys his masterpiece of the weeping woman. It was as if, af- ries of etchings, Dream and Lie of Franco, and dies. Picasso was intrigued with the ter documenting the disbelief and shock that he began in January 1937.4 Astride idea that he would be Frenhofer’s suc- at the events at Guernica, he could not a disemboweled horse, Franco is de- cessor.3 In this studio, Dora Maar pho- let go of the sorrow and was compelled picted as a monster, “the composite of tographed Picasso at work on Guernica, to grieve the loss of the victims through a scarecrow/jelly fish with enormous ten- his eyes burning with passion and anger these archetypal images of a suffering tacles and an elephantine head.”4(p24) In as he worked. She documented the paint- woman. His earlier etchings and paint- a later frame, Franco raises a pickaxe to ing’s evolution from all angles, focusing ings show only the face of grief and the the bust of a woman; in another, he gives on its transformation from isolated ele- tears. Later ones show the weeping

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©2012 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/28/2021 woman with a handkerchief seeking to elicits unease. She took life seriously and believe he would leave her for a woman contain and wipe tears away. her left-wing antifascist views were well of such an age that she could be his Guernica was a central exhibit in the known. Picasso did not always paint granddaughter. Dora became dis- 2-story Spanish Pavilion devoted to pro- Dora as an anguished weeping woman. traught and depressed. Her friends were testing Franco’s attacks. In addition to He documented her beauty, too, and her afraid she would commit suicide. One Guernica, there were exhibits, photo- signature long red fingernails in Dora day, she was found sitting naked out- murals, photographs, and screenings of Maar Seated (Figure 2). Sitting in a re- side her apartment on the steps,6 and on films documenting the war by interna- laxed pose, she pushes back her hair. The another occasion, she had a hysterical tionally known writers and filmmak- blackness of her coat is “glistening with outburst in a movie theater. The police ers. The films graphically showed the de- blues and greens.”3(p120) Her face is shown were called, and she was hospitalized in struction of the countryside and the facing both frontally and in profile. Her a psychiatric facility where she had a suffering of the people in Spain. When eyes, one red and the other blue, are ap- series of electroshock treatments.6 Her the Paris event ended, there was con- parently drawn on the same side of her friends insisted that Picasso do some- 7 siderable interest in displaying Guer- face, unsettling the viewer. The use of thing. Jacques Lacan, an eminent French nica outside France. When plans were red, pink, green, yellow, and mauve psychoanalyst, was called in and ar- made to exhibit Guernica at the Burl- highlights her vitality, energy, and self- ranged for her transfer to a private clinic; ington Galleries in London from Octo- confidence. later he became her analyst. After psy- ber 4 to 29, 1938, a series of Picasso’s Dora painted her own Weeping choanalysis, Dora turned to religion. 3(p129) weeping women were sent to accom- Woman in Red Hat, nearly identi- After a relationship with Picasso, who pany it to place it in context. The most cal to that of Picasso, in response to his seemed to view himself as godlike, she prominent of these was The Weeping painting of her (cover). It was not done became a devout Roman Catholic; she Woman (cover), completed in October in imitation but was a complementary was a recluse in her later years. 1937. It was the culmination of Picas- work of art. An artist, she painted cub- Years earlier, Dora said that she would marry Picasso if he proposed the so’s paintings of the weeping woman. Ro- 3 land Penrose purchased it from Picasso right way, but that was not to be. She for £250 in November of that year and and Picasso remained in touch with one kept it until his death in 1982. It hangs another after they separated but rarely today in the Tate Museum, London. saw one another. On one occasion, she Penrose described the Weeping Wom- sent Picasso, by now a documented com- an’s brilliant contrasting colors, red, blue, munist, a book about the lives of the green, and yellow. Penrose wrote that be- saints. Picasso seemed genuinely pleased cause bright colors are not associated with birthday gifts from her and recip- with grief, this “face where sorrow is evi- rocated with gifts to her. But those he dent in every line is highly disconcert- chose were not always kind. After Pi- ing.”3(p117) Suddenly on a clear market casso’s death, a wrapped gift to Dora, day, an unsuspecting woman wearing a never sent, was found among his pos- sessions. When efforts were made to de- red and blue hat with a blue flower on liver it to her, she refused to accept this it is the subject of and witness to a bomb- last gift from him. She was wise to de- ing attack. The painting shows her re- cline. The gift was a ring, beautiful on sponse to a tragedy that came without its surface, but with a spike through its warning. Her grieving face is literally center so it could never be worn! fragmented by her emotions. The white handkerchief, now transparent, reveals the “agonized grimace on her lips” and James C. Harris, MD “bleach[es] her cheeks” with the pallor Figure 2. Dora Maar Seated, 1937. of death. The viewer’s eye focuses on the jagged area in hard blue and white 3(p128) ist images of Picasso’s face, too, just REFERENCES around the mouth where her teeth as he did of her. She continued to work clench the handkerchief. Her knotted as an artist and exhibited long after the hands fumble and “join the tear drops 1. Gilot F, Lake C. Life With Picasso. New York, NY: end of her relationship with Picasso. McGraw-Hill; 1964:122. that pour from her eyes.” Her eyes, like During her 8-year involvement with 2. Harris JC. Picasso’s Guernica. Arch Gen Psychiatry. those of Dora Maar, are “rimmed with Picasso (1935-1943), Dora found her- 2010;67(9):878. black eyelashes; they nestle in shapes like self in competition with Marie-The´rèse 3. Caws MA. Picasso’s Weeping Woman: The Life and small boats that have capsized in the tem- for Picasso’s attention. He visited Marie- Art of Dora Maar. Boston, MA: Little Brown; 2000. pest, emptying out a river of tears.” The The´rèse and their daughter, Maya, 2 4. Freeman J. Picasso and the Weeping Women: The tears stream along the contour of her afternoons a week. Then in 1943, 62- Years of Marie-The´rèse Walter and Dora Maar. New cheek to her ear. We see in her eyes the year-old Picasso found a new mistress, York, NY: Rizzoli International Publications; 1994. terror of this day when delight has been 21-year-old Franc¸oise Gilot. Just as he 5. Baldassari A. Picasso: Life With Dora Maar: Love 3(p117) and War 1935-1945. Woodman U, trans. Paris, transformed into “unbearable pain.” had separated from his wife, Olga, years France: Flammarion; 2006. Dora Maar was a confident, intelli- before (they never divorced) for the 17- 6. Lord J. Picasso and Dora: A Personal Memoir. New gent, and creative woman when she met year-old Marie-The´rèse, he left the ma- York, NY: Farrar Straus & Giroux; 1993. Picasso. Picasso thought she had the “mi- ture Dora Maar for a younger woman. 7. Lacan J. Ecrits. Fink B, trans. New York, NY: WW randa fuerte, that strong look,”3(p120) that Dora was shocked; initially she could not Norton; 2005.

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