picasso
Robert Moriarty- Second Year Paint
Email: busbymanutd@hotmail.com
Semester 2
Year 2 Visual Culture
Word count: 875
Date: 15/8/2014
This essay is entirely my own work
Essay title: A discussion about Pablo Picasso’s Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon
Figure 1 Picasso 's Les Demoiselles d ' Avignon
I have chosen to write about Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon in response to this essay title. This large oil painting, which was created in 1907, is considered seminal in the early development of both Cubism and Modern Art, and is currently on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The painting is composed of five, nude female prostitutes, painted facing the viewer in a confrontational, non- conventional style. What Picasso is displaying here is the ‘Reversed Gaze’, in that these prostitutes are looking directly at the viewer and judging them, whereas it is typically the other way around. The five women are represented by angular and disjointed shapes, with no perspective, giving a two dimensional effect. Two of the subject matters faces are painted with features similar to that of traditional African masks, whilst the remaining three are more reminiscent of the Iberian style of the artist’s birth country. The piece is considered both revolutionary and controversial and could be a considered as a response to Henri Matisse’s ‘Le Bonheur de vivre’.
One of the more revolutionary aspects of this painting is the stylistic sources from which Picasso drew from while creating the piece, with African tribal masks, the Art of Oceania and pre-roman Iberian sculptures being the most prominent of these. The rounded contours of the features of the three women on the left can be related to Iberian sculpture whilst the fragmented planes of the two faces on the right of the composition appear to be influenced by African mask culture, though some suggest the face of the figure on the far left is more derivative of an Eqyptian style. The grotesque distortions of
Email: busbymanutd@hotmail.com
Semester 2
Year 2 Visual Culture
Word count: 875
Date: 15/8/2014
This essay is entirely my own work
Essay title: A discussion about Pablo Picasso’s Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon
Figure 1 Picasso 's Les Demoiselles d ' Avignon
I have chosen to write about Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon in response to this essay title. This large oil painting, which was created in 1907, is considered seminal in the early development of both Cubism and Modern Art, and is currently on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The painting is composed of five, nude female prostitutes, painted facing the viewer in a confrontational, non- conventional style. What Picasso is displaying here is the ‘Reversed Gaze’, in that these prostitutes are looking directly at the viewer and judging them, whereas it is typically the other way around. The five women are represented by angular and disjointed shapes, with no perspective, giving a two dimensional effect. Two of the subject matters faces are painted with features similar to that of traditional African masks, whilst the remaining three are more reminiscent of the Iberian style of the artist’s birth country. The piece is considered both revolutionary and controversial and could be a considered as a response to Henri Matisse’s ‘Le Bonheur de vivre’.
One of the more revolutionary aspects of this painting is the stylistic sources from which Picasso drew from while creating the piece, with African tribal masks, the Art of Oceania and pre-roman Iberian sculptures being the most prominent of these. The rounded contours of the features of the three women on the left can be related to Iberian sculpture whilst the fragmented planes of the two faces on the right of the composition appear to be influenced by African mask culture, though some suggest the face of the figure on the far left is more derivative of an Eqyptian style. The grotesque distortions of
Bibliography: Books: Naremore, J. (1991) Modernity and Mass Culture. United States of America, Indiana University Press. Green, C. (2001) Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon (Masterpieces of Western Painting). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Images: www.moma.org