Art in any form, shape or color fascinates me.
Among the many artists and paintings that i've seen, studied and heard of.. there's a particular painting that caughts my attention, Les Demoiselles D'avignon (one of Picassos most famous paintings). Finished in 1907 and with more than a year of previous studies, Les Demoiselles shows Picasso's own background and life, along with Iberian sculpture, Greek sculpture, African art (as seen in some faces, which resemble primitive african warrior masks), prostitution at that time in spain, illness, and of course analytical cubism at its best.
Les Demoiselles d'AvignonParis, June-July 1907
Oil on canvas
8' x 7'8" (243.9 x 233.7 cm.)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Daix 47
The painting depicts five prostitutes in a brothel, which as we all know have always been places where sexually transmitted diseases (such as syphilis) are common. such diseases were the cause for many of his friends' death.
Woman with syphilisMost naked figures at that time were a way for artists to demonstrate their skills, but in Les demoiselles d'avignon picasso shows a much more sexual overt, and of course this disappointed lots of people at that time. In this painting, the two central figures seem to be staring directly and perhaps even suggestively at the viewer, thus engaging the viewer in the painting. All of the figures are deformed. Breasts are misshapen, arms and legs look like flat planes, and three of the figures have masks ( african masks he saw in a gallery about world art at the paris' world fair of 1900) for faces. We can also see the greek influence on the woman's leg, which seems to be attached to the curtain, unfinished.. like many greek sculptures used to do with their works.
African masks influence.
Detail
The faces' shape also resembles ancient iberic sculptures found near his hometown, Malaga.. which he felt very characterized from the very first moment he heard of them and later saw them in an exposition in barcelona.
Acient Iberian SculptureThis painting really fascinates me because when you put all of these characteristics together you have a painting such as none had seen before.. we are talking about 1907 people!!! He incorporated and refuted the artistic ideals of the Renaissance, but also paved the way for an entirely new means of expression in modern painting.
Les demoiselles d'avignon was the first full-blown example of analytical cubism, an attempt to depict three dimensions without the use of perspective.
A WORK OF ART.
This panting sits today at the MoMa in New York.
Have a nice day.
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1 comment:
Actually, Les Demoiselles D'Avignon is not the first cubist painting, and certainly not an example of high Analytic Cubism. Picasso was not actually attempting to depict several dimensions at once here; it just looks like it because of his reduction of the women's bodies into geometric shapes. That reduction may appear cubist, but it actually stems from Picasso's interest in primitivism. He does limit the relationship between the foreground and the background and eliminates single-point perspective but he doesn't do so out of any cubist motivations. Rather, these primitivist aspects of the work later influenced cubism!
There is also no evidence of a cubist grid or the passage effect (adopted from Cezanne) that is typical of high analytic cubist artworks.
I don't mean to be rude, it's just such a common misconception about the work and I try to point it out to people whenever I can. Great bog though, keep up the good work!
(Also, there is no evidence of the influence of Greek sculpture, and the African masks that Picasso used as models for two of the faces were Fang masks and most likely not for warriors.)
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