Experts have found an unseen sketch by Pablo Picasso hidden beneath one of his most famous pieces of work called "Still Life".
The secret was uncovered after experts used X-ray technology to examine the Spanish cubist painter's 1922 piece, in an effort to help understand its complex layers of paint and areas where the painting appears to be wrinkled. Picasso was renowned for reusing old canvasses and painting over discarded drawings.
According to The Independent, the experts were surprised when they saw a hidden drawing of "a pitcher, a mug, a rectangular object that may be a newspaper" propped up on what appears to be a tabletop or seat of a chair. Researchers at the Art Institute of Chicago said it wasn't uncommon for Picasso to paint over previous works of art but usually he painted directly over them and incorporated the previous work into the new work, the team wrote. But with the new sketch, the researchers found that Picasso blocked out the newfound drawing using a "thick white layer" of paint before painting the abstract piece.
"This seems somewhat unusual in Picasso's practice, as he often painted directly over earlier compositions, allowing underlying forms to show through and influence the final painting," the team wrote in the paper published on July 21 in the journal of Natural Science. As a result of Picasso's blocking method, "no evidence of the earlier composition" can be seen from the surface of the abstract painting. Experts did not speculate about why Picasso may have covered up his initial drawing, but they are certain that the hidden drawing is Picasso's, noting that a similar work by the artist is now in the Gothenburg Museum of Art in Sweden.
Picasso painted the hidden sketch during his so-called linear or Cubist phase, from late 1921 to 1922, in which the artist depicted 3D objects along different geometric planes and from different vantage points. The result was supposed to portray a painting that was closer to the mind's eye view.
