Looking West and East in Picasso¿s ¿Raphael and La Fornarina XXII"

At the center of this project is the series ¿Raphael and La Fornarinä from the Suite 347 with twenty-five lithographs made by Picasso in 1968. The print Raphael and La Fornarina XXII: The Pope in the Armchair Feels Cuckolded is examined as well as the various references that are incorporated into it. The beginning of this research topic was the exhibition of these prints at the Picasso Museum in 2009, and has been expanded by Malén Gual in his essay ¿Dialogues with Japanese Art¿ in Imatges Secretes, Picasso i l¿estampa erotica japonesa (Istituto de Cultura de Barcelona, 2009). The bulk of this analysis focuses on connections to European painters. One theme that is applied to the European comparison is the ¿ideal of beauty¿. A secondary emphasis is on Japanese artists from the Edo period, through a rare print series by Sugimura Jihei from around 1680, by focusing on its analysis and description, and possible connections with Picasso¿s print. This book is centered on long-neglected and only recently discovered connections between Picasso and Japanese erotic prints. To this new area of research, it wants to contribute to a wider social meaning of Picasso¿s art reception.