Farm Woman (Full-Length)

The painting “Farm Woman (Full-length)" was executed by Picasso in a small village of La Rue-des-Bois, in the vicinity of Paris, where the artist stayed in late autumn of 1908. The farm woman, the mistress of the house, was likely to occupy his thoughts so completely as an “ideal”
and vivid embodiment of primal spiritless matter that Picasso depicted her in two of his painted works - “Farm Woman (Full-length)" and "Farm Woman (Half-length)". Both paintings were purchased by Sergey Shchukin. The farm woman’s full-length figure looks as monumental as her half –length image. It is composed of simplified and well-fitted volumes terminating in a small, roughly hewn head. However, the full-length figure has acquired several highly expressive accents: a paunch with a tilted skirt over it appears to be a vividly observed detail of life. So do her arms, similar to levers and hammers, with heavy aggression-suffused fists. The farm woman stands still, ready to come alive at the first call of her dark subconscious mind. At the same time she resembles a forbidding robot that can be manipulated at somebody’s external will.