Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso is one of the most controversial paintings of all time. In this video, we explore why.
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Spain, 1894.
José Ruiz y Blasco, Pablo Picasso’s father, takes his then thirteen year old son to a brothel for the first time
…And, although we’re not really going to go into detail here about Picasso’s exploits, it’s safe to say that the women in his life would inspire some of his strongest work.
Just look at his portraits of Dora Maar
Or Françoise Gilot
Or Jacqueline Roque
…But this grouping isn’t limited to wives and mistresses. Picasso notoriously derived inspiration from everywhere, from patrons and strangers.
Which brings us to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon painted in 1907, just thirteen years after his introduction to this underground world.
Les Demoiselles has been hailed as an icon of modern art and an affront to “good sense.” Equal parts brilliant and troubling, incendiary and confusing, this painting merits close, direct analysis.
What you’re seeing here is the legendary Spanish painter’s depiction of 5 naked women — workers from a well-known brothel on Carrer d’Avinyó (which is Catalan for ‘Avignon Street’) in Barcelona, where the artist lived at the time.
Granted, the subject isn’t exactly revolutionary. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres did it in 1814 with Grande Odalisque. Édouard Manet, famously, with Olympia. And Edgar Degas, too, in his Brothel Monotypes — to name a few.
What is new, however, is how Picasso handles it. Unlike the paintings we’ve seen, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is highly disconcerting.
For starters, we don’t understand where exactly these women are. Picasso tells us, in the title, their location — but this specificity is belied by the lack of any discernible ‘reality’ surrounding them. The ‘demoiselles’ or ‘young ladies’ in this painting occupy an incomprehensible (frankly, unreadable) geometric space. We have no real sense of depth or dimension, and a bowl of fruit at the base of the painting definitively separates their world from ours.
When we look at this painting, what we’re actually seeing are jagged, fragmented bodies displayed (as if behind a glass case) aggressively in a space which only serves to underline their angularity — or, one that dis-embodies the (displayed) bodies. Yet, unlike the women of Ingres, Manet, or even Matisse (with their soft, fleshy curves) Picasso’s demoiselles are hard, angular, and strong. Aggressive, even.
Like Manet’s Olympia, a few of Picasso’s women stare directly (read: confrontationally) out at the viewer. However, unlike Olympia (lying in a bed, surrounded by sumptuous materials and flowers), here, there is little trace of appeal. In their clear-eyed, aggressive posturing, it is obvious that these women are aware of the artist’s (and viewer’s) gaze. To some extent, they may even expect it. Yet, they do not give themselves away. This is no inviting Maja Desnuda — instead, we are met with expertly crafted masks and exaggerated poses (too exaggerated to be mistaken for anything but artifice). The elbows jut upwards into space, while the faces are half contorted beyond recognition, half impassive, illegible.
…But perhaps the best way to get to grips with this painting is by exploring these figures individually, left to right:
#art #arthistory #artist #painting #picasso #artwork
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Works Cited:
Harris, Dr. Beth and Dr. Steven Zucker. “Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”
Smarthistory. 9 August 2015.
“Henri Matisse vs. Pablo Picasso: MoMA Curator’s Interview (2003).” YouTube, uploaded by
Manufacturing Intellect. 20 February 2017, youtube.com/watch?v=BeLCM-0WROo
Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner’s Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Cengage Learning,
2021.
Lloyd, Tara. “The Controversy Behind Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso.”
Singulart. 3 December 2019. [ Ссылка ]
Meldrum, Andrew. “Stealing beauty.” The Guardian. 15 March 2016.
[ Ссылка ].
“Pablo Picasso: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” MoMA.
[ Ссылка ].
Pressman, Matt. “Q&A: John Richardson on Picasso’s “Uncontrollable” Sex Drive.”
Vanity Fair. 5 April 2011.
Trachtman, Paul. “Matisse & Picasso.” Smithsonian Magazine. February 2003.
[ Ссылка ].
