Picasso's Les Demoiselles example essay topic

Les Demoiselles d'Avingnon 1907 Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avingnon features five angular female figures posed against a jagged blue curtain. This disconcerting sculptural depiction shocks the viewer through its harsh contours and disjointed subject matter of crowded nudes. The juxtaposition of western and 'primitive' art creates apprehension through the tight rectangular composition of Renaissance-influenced curvaceous women in the centre and primitive distorted masked figures in the outer of the artwork. These crudely painted bodies appear to have been pressed flat onto the picture plane with little representation of space.

Picasso has destroyed the concept of depth or shape through the lack of changes in colour, intensity or sharpness seen throughout the artwork. Instead, he has merely used dark outlines to model the figures and fragmented the forms into geometric facets, which allows for a distinction between the objects in the painting. The two central figures of the painting are stretched out with their enlarged eyes turned towards the audience. Picasso has dramatized their facial features and simplified their body shape to create sculpture like figures seemingly carved into the background. The stark expression of these two figures is believed to have been influenced by Iberian sculpture. The position of the woman on the left hand side appears awkward and insecure, forcing the audience to expect her to collapse.

This lack of naturalism in terms of proportion and perspective is a direct challenge put forward by Picasso, questioning the audience-artwork assumptions and expectations. These two women are in a frontal position however their noses are in profile, diminishing any sense of linear perspective. The far nude on the left is on profile and hold close resemblance to Archaic Greek female sculpture with her expressionless stare and unnaturally rigid stance. It is clear to the audience that there is a definite disjunction between the left and right hand sections of the painting due to the African-masked faces of the women on the right.

This image is barbaric and intense, with simplified patterns making the faces seem highly distorted and 'primitive'. Picasso has ambiguously positioned the woman at the foreground of the painting with both her back and masked-face towards the audience. This image shows Picasso's interest and experimentation of the possibilities of viewing an object from multiple viewpoints, which later proved to be the foundations of the major artistic movement he pioneered himself, Cubism. There is also a considerable difference between the colours on the left and right halves. The pinks, terra-cott as and light browns on the left allude to the Picasso's painting in 1905-06 called the Rose period but the grays and blues on the right have accents of green and orange. In the centre of the foreground lies an orthogonal table holding pieces of fruit.

This deliberate combination of two classical subject matters, the nude and stiff life, demonstrates the flexibility and stimulating nature of Picasso's artistic practice. Why is it significant? Picasso's Les Demoiselle d'Avingnon is a definitive example of modern art and clearly shows the division between 19th and 20th Century artistic practice. This wild portrayal of five primitive prostitutes challenges the audience's concept of spatial representation, form and proportion through its lack of realistic painterly technique and departure from conventions relating to the subject of the nude. This disjointed and overlapping composition is most valued however for its importance to the development of the movement Cubism, which aimed to represent reality by using multiple vantage points and abstract forms. Les Demoiselles is often described as the 1st Cubist or proto-Cubist artwork as it is evident of this style slowly developing from the left to the right hand side of the painting.

Les Demoiselles also represents the struggle for a new language of painting and the capacity of artists to make such great advancements in technique and accepted notions of art. It additionally demonstrates the ways in which painting can address and challenge world historical ideas relating to philosophy and artistic expression. Picasso's '... work of demolition' has thus been recognised for its importance to the development of Cubism and liberation from the conventional and is broadly accepted as a canon piece of modern art. ARTIST: Les Demoiselle arose at a time of great political and cultural change and in an era of significant technological and scientific advancement. In the early 20th Century the notion of the individual in the expanding city was becoming of some concern to artists as they begin searching for meaning and expression in various artistic mediums, especially painting.

A few years prior to this artwork was Picasso's renowned Blue Period (1901-04) in which he created sentimental and humanitarian depictions of sad and hopeless individuals on the fringe of society. During this period, Picasso's monochrome works featured El-Greco like figures, which were often described as having 'spiritual anorexia' and an ambiance of isolation. Towards the end of 1904, Picasso made a transition into the Rose Period, which generally displayed a happier state of mind with animals and circus performers dominating the canvas. In The Family of Saltimbanques (1905) Picasso has used the wandering entertainers as a metaphor for his own isolated situation. The sculptural and simplified faces of the figures reflect the mask-like visages that were to appear in his work in 1906. In 1905, Picasso met the famous artistic patrons Gertrude and Leo Stein who quickly became his benefactors.

It was at their house when Picasso was first exposed to Mexican art and became deeply interest in the simplified features in the carvings. This sparked an interest in 'primitive' art, which was also become increasing in vogue in Paris during these years. Picasso spent a lot of his time over the next year visiting museums such as the exhibition of Iberian sculptures at the Louvre and his works became significantly more stylized. In this same year Picasso met Matisse and their consistent rivalry begun. Matisse produced an overwhelmingly exuberant painting of nudes called Joy of Life in 1907, which many believed Picasso was making a mockery of in Les Demoiselles.

Matisse accused Picasso of simply trying to regain some of the attention with this challenging artwork, illustrating a morality tale located in a brothel. Picasso began Les Demoiselles in May 1907 however during this production period he discovered African sculpture in the ethnographic museum called Trocadero. Picasso denies however that this work was influenced by African art and affirms that it was Iberian sculpture, which formed the basis of his painting. It is confirmed that the two left hand women were painted some time after the rest of the composition so it is possible that Picasso's memory is incomplete and he repainted the vehement masked heads after his discovery of African sculpture. Les Demoiselles was a methodically prepared artwork that Picasso worked and experimented on during 1906. After months of revision, development and a total of 19 composition sketches, Picasso finally began working on Les Demoiselles, which showed vast differences to that of his original drawings.

Picasso's initial intention was to depict a brothel scene with a sailor surrounded by nude women, fruit, flowers and allusions to mortality. He also placed a male Medical student amongst the women in his early drawings. But during Picasso's highly devoted artistic practice, the males disappeared and the demoiselles turned their eyes to the viewer in a confronting, yet simultaneously inviting expression. The title The Philosophical Brothel was abandoned and the influence of 'primitive' art became increasingly important for Picasso. This multi-levelled working process of Picasso shows his zeal for diverse expression and dedication towards the development of his own style and artistic reputation.

AUDIENCE: Les Demoiselles remained in Picasso's studio for the first few years, allowing only a few dozen visitors to view the artwork. These included close friends and acquaintances of Picasso, mostly other artists and art patrons. The most common reaction among this audience was one of shock and confusion mainly due to the way in which it was painted and lack of painterly technique. George Braque: Look Pablo, this painting of yours, its like making us eat tow and drink petrol to spit fire, but despite this criticism, like most others, Braque soon saw its importance and gave up Fauvism in order to further established the ideas demonstrated in Les Demoiselles. Andre Derain: We will soon find Picasso hanged behind his large painting. Andre Salmon: It was the hideousness of the faces that froze the half-converted with fear.

Leo Steinberg: It is the styles (confronted in their variety) that become the objects of the painting. Sergei Ivanovich Chtchokin: Has Picasso really gone mad? During this time the originality, size and power of Les Demoiselles gave it a legendary reputation and it was finally passed into the collection of Jacques Doucet in the 1920's where it was given its final title by Andre Salmon. In 1937, it was first publicly exhibited.

In 1939, the Museum of Modern Art in New York bought Les Demoiselles for an underestimated price of 28,000 dollars. It remains in the MoMA today.