Les Demoiselles d'Avignon represents a break with traditional picturing in that it is no longer a faithful representation of reality as it completely abandons the principles of optical illusionism.
Formal Innovation in Modern Art
Picasso’s painting shows five naked female prostitutes in a brothel. There are two sets of figures, three figures on the left and two figures on the right, divided by the fall of the drapery hanging in the background.
The small table with fruit juts out of the lower edge of the painting like a wedge and also serves as a dividing element between the two sets of women. Its surface is tilted so extremely that it is almost parallel with the picture plane.
The distorted bodies of the women assume uninhibited poses and they look directly at the viewer as if they were presenting themselves to a client. The figures are rendered schematically through simplified features and shapes of their faces and bodies.
The treatment of the figures is quite contradictory as they appear solid and flat at the same time. Their solidity is emphasised by large areas of rich flesh colour which makes them statue-like, yet the bodies are delineated by sharp-angled bold contours stressing their flatness.
Beginning of Cubism
Picasso abandoned the traditional devices used to build up a convincing illusion of space inhabited by three dimensional figures, such as modelling by light and shade or perspective. His pictorial space is extremely shallow and incoherent.
The figures overlap one another and objects fragmented into tilting planes are only slightly suggestive of spatial relationship within the picture. This is evident in the drapery whose folds are marked by a succession of bright blue geometrical shapes delineated by white border. This drapery also marks the split between the two sets of figures.
'Primitive' Influences of Iberian Sculpture and African Masks
The figures on the left are inspired by Iberian sculpture while those on the right are based on African sculpture. The difference is evident in the treatment of the faces, in particular the two women on the right resemble African masks.
There is no gradual transition between the two types of women, they are two completely different and divided entities inhabiting the same space, positioned side by side and staring out at the viewer. The composition thus appears disharmonious.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is radical in that Picasso used the motif of African mask in search of artistic expression that was to be more authentic. This primitivising trend in the avant garde art encouraged the re-evaluation of non-western cultures.
Writings of art critics Roger Fry and Carl Einstein reveal that both saw African art as containing its own specific aesthetic value. According to art historian Patricia Leighten Picasso used the motif of African mask as a demonstration of his anti-colonialist stance.
Compositional Principles of Les Demoiselles and Subsequent Development in Arts
Picasso’s painting had an immediate impact on Braque who, together with Picasso then went on developing and experimenting with the new compositional principles. They produced a range of works in what is referred to as analytic cubism.
In analytic cubism fragmentation, distortion, shallow space and multiple viewpoints became increasingly extreme to the point where the subject matter was almost unrecognizable and spatial relationships almost unidentifiable. Cubist exploration thus led to total abstraction as can be seen in the work of Mondrian.
In juxtaposing the Iberian and African figures, Picasso introduced an element of heterogeneity and adjacency. This principle was later developed in synthetic cubism, particularly in collage where the incorporation of everyday materials and objects could be seen as heterogeneous and their positioning followed the principle of adjacency. These techniques and compositional principles of collage were echoed in Dada photomontage.
Steve Edwards and Paul Wood: Art of the Avant-Gardes, Yale University Press, 2004
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