The compression of The Studio’s space into two dimensions is violated only by the overlapping of the tall painting framed in yellow with the red table, and more subtly, by the two apples on the table: as opposites on the color circle, red and green optically vibrate and refuse to sit in the same surface plane. Picasso confuses the identities of his ‘figures’: for example, the ‘woman’ in the painting is lacking much of her anatomy (limbs and breasts for example) but these omissions are supplied by the black lines and the apples, indicating that the painting is also at the same time the (nude) model in the studio. Picasso has created an image which tempts us with our need to link images to things we know in nature, without surrendering the artist’s liberty to paint what he wishes.