Figures by the Sea (The Kiss)

Pablo Picasso, 1931

Technical Details

About This Work

Figures by the Sea (The Kiss) makes an embrace difficult to read as either tender or violent. Two interlocked bodies are reworked into biomorphic masses, with angular projections, compressed mouths, and overlapping contours that turn physical closeness into visual pressure. The sea setting offers only a minimal frame; the painting's force comes from the unstable relation between fusion and collision, desire and threat, within the figures themselves.

Dated 1931, this large 130.5 × 195.5 cm oil on canvas is cataloged within Picasso's Surrealist-period work and identified with the Musée Picasso, Paris. Its title and imagery support discussion of the kiss as an ambiguous motif, but the catalog does not infer private motives or relationship narratives beyond the documented work data. The general museum route is retained while an exact public object page is still being verified; the entry's existing image remains linked to its stated source for review.

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