Analysis Of Les Demoiselles D'avignon By Pablo Picasso And Its Social And Historical Impact

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) by Pablo Picasso, is both stylistically and socially revolutionary. This is due to Picasso’s leap from traditional romanticized female figures into geometric and abstracted forms as well as his position of prostitutes, considered the lowest of female occupations, as not only his subject, but as shameless and empowered as they stare directly at the viewer. The choice of subject, divergence from accepted principles of design like vanishing-point perspective and realistic three-dimensionality and the magnitude of the piece (8 feet by 8 feet) made a strong statement that was not easily embraced in its time, that even the lowest of women (and perhaps all women) could command attention and respect, and that the human body could be understood far beyond the possibilities of realism. The early 1900s were filled with artists trying to break away from the mold of Realism to create a more broken down, less formulaic, and expressive mode of expression (or lack of). Much like Satie creating Minimalism in Classical music and proving that form is holding artistry back, Picasso (as well as his peers such as Georges Braque) broke down barriers of artistic conformity and created a movement to change art forever. From examining Les Demoiselles d’Avignon with the context of its social and historical impact we can see that Picasso was attempting to break from the restrictive forms of painting that had been dominating the landscape until then and differentiate between art and reality.

Picasso spent over nine months sketching and preparing for the final painting, but when it was finally finished in 1907 it wasn't released into the public view until 1916 due to many of Picasso's peers horrified reactions to the painting. Even though, the campaign for women's rights by The Suffragettes had already been making headway since 1903 in England; it was too abrasive for the social landscape of the time and Picasso could have ruined his career. The setting is of a brothel with five prostitutes, while the women featured in the paint appear to be standing boldly still in their nudity, the movement within the composition itself leads the eye to their faces and their form. One (far left) is walking into the room while lifting a curtain with her left hand. There are two women in the middle that are the most proportionally accurate to human form, besides their legs being presented with several different views with the legs of the middle right women disappearing at the hip and reappearing at the knee with a different view, which adds the cubist form of painting that Picasso was using to reject the old form of Renaissance painting that had been dominating. He rejected the early painting style of creating the illusion of three-dimensional objects and instead made a two-dimensional piece to give a new perspective to his objects. This is important because Picasso wanted to emphasize the importance to not mistake reality with painting. Cubism is a proponent of relativity, it’s a mixture of observations, memories, and the real object(s).

In Les Demoiselles d'Avignonare there are blocky and geometric background shapes that set apart the human figures with contrasting colors. Aligning with this, the women (as well as the background) do not have the same color tone over there bodies, the prostitute on the far left is mostly red besides her breasts and face which helps emphasize her emerging the darker red of the curtain and as well gives the feeling of stark nudity emerging from the drawn shades. The prostitutes on the right have African-masks covering their faces. This hearkens to the full-figured women of ancient cultures. Picasso was heavily influenced by Iberian and African during the time he was painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignonare and used the themes of “the spiritual aspect of the composition”(pablopicasso.org). The prostitute that is squatting is looking around her shoulder at and angle that would kill any human which adds to Picasso’s strive to stray from reality, let alone the fact the mask appears to be from several different angles. The second prostitute that appears to be wearing a mask, breasts are undefined and they appear to be just square blocks of skin, but you know exactly what they are. Through this abstracted choice, Picasso is commenting on the past forms of painting that represent the human form, showing that you know exactly what they are without them being presented like they normally would. Generally, the prostitutes are looking outward, at the viewer, with complete normalcy in their eyes: showing that they find no trouble in what they do (specifically the two in the middle), even if society at this time rejected this line of work and saw it as ghastly. With the unconventional use of depth and white space, that is to say, there is very little of either one, the viewer is guided to look right into the eyes of the women, humanizing them in a society where prostitutes were invisible or scorned, even in their abstracted figures. This matters because Picasso was trying to show the world the strange beauty that is held in these places of depravity, as well as separating reality painting and art in general, as Oscar Wilde said in his essay The Decay of Lying, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life…”

Given their facial expressions, the prostitutes have no problem with their line of work and flaunt it. The two in the middle have their arms raised up presenting their breasts with expressionless faces staring out at the viewer. They have no connection or interaction with one another, further emphasizing the brash world they are enveloped in. The painting is 8 feet x 8 feet; 244 x 233 cm, so the prostitutes loom over you like giants being nearly 7 feet tall and give you this immense feeling of the power of the female form and femininity, as well as the strength they hold within themselves. This composition represents the boldness of the female figure and seems to have a connection to ancient goddess forms from early cultures. For instance, the Greek Goddess of Love, Beauty, and Sexuality Aphrodite. Aphrodite, unlike other gods of passion such as Athena and Artemis, has love affairs with mortals and Gods and belongs to no one but herself. This reveals

Retrospectively, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is considered one of the first cubist paintings. Picasso uses juxtaposition lack of dimension in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Visually analyzing the principles of design used in the piece, the view can see that in terms of emphasis, Picasso highlights the figures of the women with the lighter colors set them apart to the viewer. The gaze of the women, too, emphasizes their facial features and their bodies are fragmented but their eyes are fixed outward. Within the entire work, the proportions are fairly balanced, with the odd number of five subjects, one quite centered and two on each side, all women in realistic proportion to one another. This connects to the balance of the composition, that on the right, two women are vertically illustrated whereas on the left they are portrayed as side by side, thus giving the painting a sense of evenness without exact symmetry.

In conclusion, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was in response to the increasingly detached and demoralized social atmosphere: people saw races and genders getting treated like dogs and tragedies such as the courrières mine disaster (which left 1,099 miners dead) occurring. There was change afoot, people wanted something new, they wanted something to break down barriers, and since art is a pure form of expression they used the medium that they controlled to start to change there, as Picasso said himself, “When we discovered Cubism, we did not have the aim of discovering Cubism. We only wanted to express what was in us…”. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was a start to arguably the most influential and important art movement of the 20th century. It sparked the excitement of a new era, the outrage of ones who say tradition and form is sacred, and joyfulness to see something new and groundbreaking. This is what true art is, it evokes an emotion be it good or bad and stands against the kitsch and the bland. Picasso changed the landscape of art, along with his peers, with this painting; it was the catalyst for Cubism which after this piece became increasingly more hard to pin down to a subject and became more expressive and visceral. It created a new world away from linear perspective and reveals to us the system of illusionism and rejects full-heartedly.

Citations:

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