This drawing exemplifies many aspects of the style known as Analytic Cubism, pioneered by Picasso with his friend Georges Braque. Here, the artist reinterprets the female nude as a series of lines and semicircles. Areas of shading provide only hints of three-dimensional form; however, essential parts of a human body—head, neck, shoulders, arms, torso, breasts, legs, and kneecaps—appear nonetheless. Picasso, who received traditional art training early in life (his father was a professor of fine arts), piques the viewer’s desire to fill in, or “complete,” the figure according to academic standards of finish.

The met.