Standing Female Nude by Pablo Picasso 1910

This drawing exemplifies many aspects of the style known as Analytic Cubism, pioneered by Picasso with his friend Georges Braque. Here, the artist reinterprets the female nude as a series of lines and semicircles. Areas of shading provide only hints of three-dimensional form; however, essential parts of a human body—head, neck, shoulders, arms, torso, breasts, legs, and kneecaps—appear nonetheless. Picasso, who received traditional art training early in life (his father was a professor of fine arts), piques the viewer’s desire to fill in, or "complete," the figure according to academic standards of finish.

The met.