Image: Eugenio Recuenco

Picasso is known to have said,

It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them,

about his well-known political comment Guernica. In a similar vain to this abstract visual analysis of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, many of his art works are provocatively open to interpretation. In fact, some of the characters featured in his portraits are depicted in such an abstruse manner that one may say they are ‘decomposed’.

It’s because of this interpretive nature and its obscurity that it seems hard to believe — and at the same time the obvious modern derivative of Picasso’s work — that Madrid-based photographer Eugenio Recuenco would manage to accomplish a cubism-inspired fashion photo shoot while remaining in line with the Spanish painter’s strangeness. The models’ clothing, make-up as well as posture form a beautiful realist reproduction of Picasso’s cubist portraits. Recuenco also makes use of some split screen-like divisions, which add distortion to the image and thus render his work all the more Picasso-esque.

Image: Eugenio Recuenco

Image: Eugenio Recuenco

Image: Eugenio Recuenco

Image: Eugenio Recuenco

Image: Eugenio Recuenco

Image: Eugenio Recuenco

Image: Eugenio Recuenco

Images: Eugenio Recuenco