Essay by Kate McCormick, Class of 2013

If there was anything Marie Laurencin knew how to do, it was how to shake up the art scene of 1920s Paris.

Laurencin began consorting with the Cubist circle after meeting Georges Braque during their years of study at the Académie Humbert. Cubism was a movement that aimed to fuse observation with memory, creating a new perspective reflecting a rapidly changing world. Although Laurencin did not believe her work to be intellectual, echoes of Cubism can be found in Le Chapeau sur les yeux. After a few moments of analysis, the viewer realizes that the figure's hat belongs in a work where we are viewing her from above rather than facing her directly, reflecting the intersection of multiple viewpoints inherent to Cubism.

However, Marie was not interested in imitating her peers. In fact, she did not even like them; "Cubism has poisoned three years of my life, preventing me from doing any work. I never understood it.As long as I was influenced by the 'great men' surrounding me I could do nothing" (Laurencin, 134.) In turn, Pablo Picasso once wrote that Laurencin often made "noises like a mythical animal," and his various lovers thought her to be "vulgar" and "ugly" (Broude, 78). Marie's own lover during this time, pivotal writer and art critic, Guillaume Apollinaire (web gallery 156), said that Marie's eccentricities were her "greatest gift." The poet was not speaking only from his heart; Laurencin was the most popular female artist of her time.

Intriguingly, Laurencin did not necessarily believe that she distorted reality drastically in her work or that she was any more peculiar than anyone else. Since her youth she suffered from extreme myopia and relied on emotions to help fill in the blank canvas her sight could not (Sandell, 33). The figure in Le Chapeau sur les yeux could be walking through rain or perhaps the abstract patterns surrounding her are an extension of her aura. Laurencin adored walking through the streets of Paris while donning the latest fashions (Laurencin, 47). The woman who appears in this work seems to share her passion. Above all, Marie Laurencin was a woman who loved life for its face value. The figure in this etching is not pondering mathematics or revolutionizing perspective. She is simply taking a walk and enjoying her day.