Woman with Kerchief 1906 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) by Pablo Picasso's can be placed in the impressionist style of painting. This impressionism, in case of Picasso, stems from certain ideals of the subconscious art form that he was able to induce in this painting, as he was able to do so in many more later on in his life. The woman depicted in the painting can be said to be part of Picasso's mind frame of painting whatever came to his mind, rather than sticking to delivering some specific message. The painting resembles some of Picasso's more spontaneous and strictly non-verbal, and spiritually persuasive art that could be found in the more primitive of arts. It is this stylistic quality found in Picasso's paintings that allows people to distinguish his style of work very easily. Although he was making conscious art, his content in the Woman with Kerchief was the representation of what sub or unconscious art would look like. This was set aside by his very extraordinary and novel painting style.
Many art connoisseurs regard Picasso's work to be taken directly out of the French tradition known as Intimism, which is a mixture of the middle class rites and the cultural norms that runs parallel to the cultures in the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. The style in Woman with Kerchief is very conscious in that it assumes that everything is possible and that the artist is there to show the others what they are missing out in the overall picture. At the same time, there are many subconscious themes hidden in his work as he is prone to detect the unusual in almost every aspect of life. This picture represents the content in soft colors that are presented in a very dark manner. More things come to light as one looks at the picture closely. At first look, the painting appears to be a production of the subconscious as it looks like nothing important is going on in the woman's life, yet, there is content within the picture. A closer look reveals that it is a very much conscious piece of work with representation of the 'kerchief' serving as a symbol of the woman's status and her emotive state of mind.
Picasso is one of the artists whose paintings are mostly based upon the subconscious visions of the mind. His work appeals to the people on various levels, and Woman with Kerchief is no different. Perhaps in some ways, this piece of work also drifts from the traditional definition of impressionism, where many artists have depicted it as being cheery, yet goofy, and is mostly very repetitious. Woman with Kerchief is one such painting as it has become a very familiar landmark in the eyes of all art students and critics. The beauty about this piece is that speaks out to the audience almost immediately. It is like a prose that he has written down while just rambling on, yet it creates a deep and meaningful content. He uses symbols to convey his message but his symbols are as alien to us as the gobbledygook of a baby, yet the audience can understand what he is trying to say. This is how his art can be classified as subconscious art, deviating away from the norms of impressionism; he does not make anything clear but the viewers get the idea anyway.
Picasso's work has been given a very stylistic and determined form. His work can mostly be described as subconscious pieces of work since most of them involved making collages and other amalgamations of material put together in extraordinarily novel ways. Picasso was able to develop many of his unique methods, and this is what makes it extremely difficult to classify his painting Woman with Kerchief into a single stylistic category.