Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: A Cubist Revolution
Picasso’s *Les Demoiselles d’Avignon*: A Cubist Revolution
In preliminary studies, the narrative passes as a sequential presentation of a particular time. The color range goes from pink to blue, with strong facets separating colors by body parts. There is no traditional perspective; each individual figure has its own space, with spaces juxtaposed alongside each other.
The first study results in a sketch in pastel and black chalk. The second study created a sketch in oil. The second sketch, in watercolor, is very close to the final work.
Picasso’s Creative Process
- The first idea was to work horizontally with seven figures: two men and five women. It has a narrative character (horizontal). A student is seen carrying a book (or a skull in previous drawings, symbolizing death after erotic expression). The other is a sailor at a table with a jug and fruits such as watermelon. Women appear on different levels. This scene is entirely independent, and the figures act as spectators looking outside. It is a scene from a brothel. The sailor is known to be there, but this does not appear characterized by other previous drawings. He is shown as before or after sex. It is said that the medical student represents Picasso’s obsession with syphilis. The book and the skull represent awareness of the harmful effects of unbridled sex. They also refer to the baroque *vanitas*. The sailor was common in the brothels of the port cities like Barcelona or Rome. Fruits are also seen in the harem.
- The man disappeared in the second sketch. Picasso concentrates and alters the available figures. He takes the first term still life. There is a plausible composition of space. It announces the color gamut of the final work. These figures are now being offered to the viewer, without autonomy, with an exchange of glances between the women on the side. But the central figure is not yet resolved.
We refer to the final work where the format changes to vertical, almost square, so it is not narrative. The right place is finally found, and the center is solved by extending the central figures. One is squatting with her head looking at us completely flipped, and so do the plants, which challenge us to look.
In the heads, the color gamut intensifies. They are African, influenced by Picasso’s interest in Egypt and the Iberian statues.
Birth and Evolution of Cubism, 1908-1915
The first X-ray of the human body was a great revelation, for being allowed to see the living dead, seeing through the layers, depth. Cubism was a revolution, something totally new. With the X-ray of the sculpture, we see deconstruction. We see a figure through it. We find a planimetric projection of the volumes. A feeling can be flat as a volume.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was exposed in 1916. It was recognized as revolutionary for the first time by Breton in 1920. In 1907, Picasso was the only one aware of the change: *Peintre de la vie moderne*.
The Relationship Between Picasso and Matisse
Gertrude Stein said that Picasso and Matisse were friends and enemies at once. Picasso visited Matisse’s studio every Friday, and on Saturdays, they were at Stein’s house. Years later, they began exchanging paintings. It was a boom time in the history of art. Both ended up with the mirror of *Las Meninas*.
Looking at Picasso’s work *Les Demoiselles*, Matisse was outraged. He saw it as an attempt to ridicule the modern world. The discussion made him create great works, and *Les Demoiselles* also influenced Matisse.
While Matisse was conducting *Dance and Music*, Picasso began his Cubist period, but he was lonely and misunderstood, like the protagonist of Balzac’s novel. No one wanted to buy his work, not even Leo Stein. Gertrude said that Picasso seemed to be tired of everything.
Cézanne’s Influence
Tired, Picasso started to notice the still lifes of Cézanne’s last years. He had already included still life in works like *Gosol* or *Harem*. He had not realized their importance, as in *Les Demoiselles*, which was projected.
In the late works of Cézanne, basic geometric elements are used for the organization and projection of depth into the plane since there is no background scenery.
Between autumn 1907 and spring 1908, Picasso practiced construction. He saw that each body has an interior architecture, like a skeleton, finding the bones of things.
Together with Braque, he went to L’Estaque to address the same issues as Cézanne in recent years.