Return to Gallery
Les Demoiselles d'AvignonLes Demoiselles d'Avignon Digital Image © Bridgeman Art Library © Estate of Pablo Picasso/2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

Pablo Picasso. 1907 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Curator Note

"The painting that shattered perspective and birth Cubism. Picasso depicts five prostitutes in a brothel on Avignon Street in Barcelona. He violently fractures their bodies into jagged planes, influenced by African masks and Iberian sculpture. It destroys the Renaissance tradition of the "female nude" as an object of beauty, confronting the viewer with aggression and fear (of syphilis/women)."

Form

  • Fractured, jagged planes (Proto-Cubism).
  • Multiple perspectives (simultaneity).
  • No sense of depth; background and foreground merge.
  • African mask-like faces on the right.
  • Iberian sculpture faces on the left.

Function

  • To break with the entire Western tradition of representation.
  • To expel the artist's fear of women/disease (exorcism).
  • To challenge the viewer's comfort.
  • To experiment with "Primitivism".
  • To depict 3D objects on a 2D surface without illusionism.

Content

  • Five nude prostitutes.
  • Fruit in foreground: symbol of sexuality/flesh.
  • Curtains: hard shards of glass/ice.
  • Direct, confronting stares.
  • Combination of Western and Non-Western styles.

Context

  • Picasso was competing with Matisse who had just painted "Joy of Life".
  • Influenced by Cézanne's bathers and African art (Trocadero Museum).
  • Originally included male figures (medical student/sailor) but removed them.
  • Shocked even his friends (Braque/Matisse) when first seen.
  • Kept hidden for years.