Art researchers have found a hidden painting of a man under one of Pablo Picasso's masterpieces, The Blue Room. By using infrared (红外线的) imagery they discovered that the hidden man under the painting was a man with his face resting on his hand. Now the question that scientists at The Phillips Col-lection hope to answer is simple. Who is he?
The finding of the hidden man in The Blue Room leads to new research about the 1901 painting, which was created by Picasso in Paris at the start of his blue period of unhappiness. Researchers discovered that the hidden man was painted in a reworked composition by Picasso. They are sure that it is not a self-portrait. They think it might be the Paris art dealer Ambrose Villard who hosted Picasso's first show in 1901, but there's no record or evidence to prove this, so the research continues.
Hidden pictures have been found under other important Picasso paintings, such as La Vie and Woman Ironing. A technical analysis of La Vie at the Cleveland Museum of Art also found that Picasso reworked the painting's composition. And scientists found a portrait of a man under Picasso's painting Woman Ironing at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.
Dorothy Kosinski, director of The Phillips Collection, said more new knowledge about Picasso's paintings can be discovered through high-tech cooperation among museums. "Our audiences are curious about the high-tech research because it can help them know more about the paintings. It's giving them a doorway to make them understand Picasso's paintings more," she said. "The more we can understand, the greater our appreciation of the paintings will be."
