Nude under a Pine Tree, 1959 (oil on canvas)

Painted January 20, 1959 For many artists living amid the destruction and rebuilding of postwar Europe, the great painters and sculptors of the past offered an important sense of continuity and order. In Nude under a Pine Tree, Pablo Picasso looked to the long tradition of figurative painting, including the female nudes of Francisco de Goya. In contrast to his predecessors, however, Picasso placed the monumental figure on rocky terrain, rather than on a plush chaise. He also used bold, modernist forms that referenced his own earlier artistic styles: the flattened face, segmented legs and torso, and multiple viewpoints recall some of his Cubist works, while the color palette evokes his classical style of the 1920s.