The artwork “The Greedy” was created by the renowned artist Pablo Picasso in 1901. It is an oil painting on canvas, measuring 92.8 by 68.3 cm. This piece belongs to the Expressionism movement and is categorized as a genre painting, which depicts scenes from everyday life.
In “The Greedy,” the viewer is presented with a somber and emotional composition. The artwork features a young girl standing at a table, deeply engaged in eating from a bowl. She clutches the bowl with her left hand while using her right hand to consume its contents. The color palette is dominated by blues and whites, creating a sense of melancholy and coldness which is characteristic of Picasso’s Blue Period during which this artwork was painted. A sense of solitude is accentuated by the empty space around the girl and the simple, sparse objects on the table, such as a cup and a piece of bread, furthering the theme of poverty and hunger. The girl’s focused attention on the bowl and her subdued posture evoke feelings of need and introspection, distancing the figure from her surroundings and drawing the viewer into her quiet world of basic necessity. This potent image reflects not just a moment in the subject’s life but also invokes broader themes of human vulnerability and endurance.
