Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon – Cubist Breakthrough

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Iconographical Analysis
Contextual Discussion
Technical Aspects
Conclusion
Reference
Footnotes

Introduction

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a legendary piece of art painted by Spanish-French artist Pablo Picasso in 1907. This work is considered the pioneer of the genre of cubism, one of the first innovative trends in modernist fine art. Modernism, both in painting and in other artistic media, focuses primarily on the form that requires special attention and research as a means of conveying meaning.

Formally, the painting is clearly avant-garde, but borrows from the art of non-Western peoples in order to create a sense of antiquity, expressed in slightly faded and sometimes monotonous colors interspersed with pure white. The carnal tones of orange and skin-pink predominate in the picture – Picasso emphasizes the physicality of the depicted, but does not go into erotic details. He also uses primitive shades of blue and green, apparently to emphasize the combination of naive and intellectually complex beginnings in the picture. The method of drawing is distinctly cubist, striving to embody what is visible from several perspectives at the same time, which leads to a broken angularity and an imaginary simplification of the organization of lines. The lines are not so much assembled into concrete forms as they emphasize the unreality of what is captured – the image of the fabrics among which the women are posing is devoid of certainty and disorients the viewer. Female beauty here becomes the embodiment of unbridled vice, and the angularity and grotesqueness of the picture demonstrates a new revolutionary approach to form and plasticity in painting.

Iconographical Analysis

The painting depicts five naked women, apparently courtesans, against an abstract linen background. The heroines of the picture pose, looking directly into the eyes of the viewer, taking deceptively graceful forms. Of the five women, only two have distinctly human and recognizable facial features, and these features are similar, as if sisters or twins are in the center of the picture. The woman on the left has an unnaturally elongated face in profile and painted in a deathly gray color, her eyes are also devoid of a natural vibrant color.

The two women on the right with their faces resemble rather grotesque African masks, but it is not clear whether they wear masks or their faces are distorted due to the surreal and nightmarish design of the picture. The heroines simultaneously open and cover their bodies with canvases and curtains, creating an enticing and at the same time disturbing impression. The broken poses in which the women are, the nightmarish grimaces of some of them, emphasize the sinister passion of their nature. At the bottom of the painting and in its foreground is also a simplified still life with a piece of watermelon and a bunch of grapes.

Contextual Discussion

This painting by Picasso tries to force the viewer to understand and rethink the principles by which their own aesthetic perception works, to ask questions about the status of beautiful and innovative in art. The painting was probably inspired by The Bathers of the French impressionist Paul Cezanne, but it seems that Picasso collects all the trends from both Western and increasingly popular tribal art, in particular the craft of the peoples of Africa.¹ Paradoxically, this painting was not exhibited for several decades after it was written, despite the fact that it is one of the starting points of modern avant-garde painting.

This obviously speaks of the innovativeness of the picture and the scandalous nature of it, especially in the context of the early 20th century, which was not quite ready for avant-garde upheavals. The novelty of this work lies in the breakdown of traditional ideas about beauty in the picture. Traditionally for that time, the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites and the revivalists of the Renaissance captured female beauty in all its sacred correctness, combining nudity with naturalness and at the same time purity. Picasso’s nakedness is de-eroticized and at the same time emphasized and menacingly vicious.

Technical Aspects

The very format of the picture, almost square, emphasizes how much Picasso sought to go beyond the traditional form. The painting refuses neither a landscape nor a portrait, but an immersive work that captivates the mind with its formal completeness despite the violation of all the principles of classical painting. Picasso apparently works with dry and non-viscous paint in order to give the painting a somewhat worn feel, the illusion that the viewer is looking at an artifact from another civilization. The simplification of forms and the almost complete lack of perspective and depth in the picture can be interpreted as the emphasized superficiality of the depicted heroines, who are not so much personalities as embodiments of carnal temptation.

Conclusion

The meaning of the modernist painting does not lie in a philosophical statement or expression of an image or symbol, as is customary in more traditional art, but suggests reflecting on the subject of innovation in art. Picasso’s innovation lies in the emphasis on distortion of tradition and a unique, multi-technique and multi-cultural view of form and perspective that makes the viewer think about the limits of what is acceptable in art.

Reference

Blier, S.P. (2019). Picasso’s Demoiselles: The untold origins of a modern masterpiece. Duke University Press.

Footnotes

Blier, S.P. (2019). Picasso’s Demoiselles: The untold origins of a modern masterpiece. Duke University Press.

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