Blue Woman with a Guitar

[i]The Musician[/i] is one of Lempicka's genre paintings. It draws on a distinctly traditional theme: allegorical representations of the arts. In this case, music is depicted as a beautiful and elegant, dark-haired woman, absorbed in music-making. Lempicka was deeply influenced by the [url href=https://www.wikiart.org/en/paintings-by-style/high-renaissance]Renaissance[/url] works she saw in the Louvre Museum, among other places, and this work might reference any number of paintings from the period and afterward. Indeed, as recently as the early 1900s and 1910s, the [url href=https://www.wikiart.org/en/artists-by-art-movement/cubism]Cubists[/url] had made musicians and musical instruments major themes of their work. But Lempicka's thoroughly modern, sensual, and fashionable female figure, while comprised of the characteristic generously modeled planes and forms of Cubism, is the main feature of the painting. This contrasts sharply with Cubist compositions in which objects and backgrounds seem to be constantly shifting, with individual components of the overall work of equal importance for the most part. Additionally, the bright blue dress rejects the customary, drab palette of early Cubism. Lempicka's paintings often feature limited palettes but the color is rarely subdued and the colors she selects are often in step with the tastes of the period.