Les Demoiselles D'avignon and Cubism Movement

Impressionism and the Rise of Cubism

Just as Impressionism played a key role in Modernism, another revolutionary art movement is Cubism. About 30 years after the first Modernist movement, Impressionism began, Cubism was slowly replacing it. “Since the Renaissance almost all paintings had obeyed a convention,” Pablo Picasso ditched this convention of three-dimensionality illusions, rather creating an extreme demolished picture that is broken up into geometric fragments with different points of place and perspective (Richardson, 1991). Furthermore, Picasso cut up objects into different shapes on the canvas, mainly focusing on triangles, circles, and cubes. He brought different views of subject matters together in the same space, resulting in artworks that look abstracted. This way of representing objects was then named after these shapes in his artworks being cubes, giving the movement its name, Cubism. Ever since a young age, Picasso turned away from realistic paintings and figures, as he wanted to gather the visual facts of seeing the art process and not just the results. By breaking down the qualities of these pictures, emphasizing still life into shapes and the way of representing items, Picasso could let the space flow through these objects, from different perspective points: the background, foreground, and showing them from unusual angles. Picasso’s philosophy was to capture the mood of his subjects by placing a new emphasis on the integration connecting a depicted scene and the canvas. Along with the creation of his non-representational art, the invention of collage emerged with Picasso placing another medium such as fabric, newspapers, magazines, and rope onto his oil paintings. He disregarded the idea of paintings being a door to all objects in the world and began to evolve this idea by using different materials to refer to these other subjects he wanted to depict. This idea was known as collage and was seen as exceedingly popular and influential for decades to come (Chipp, 1968).

Les Demoiselles D'Avignon and the Cubism Movement

One of the most shocking Cubist artworks illustrated by Pablo Picasso is Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, created in 1907. The title translates to "The Young Ladies of Avignon" and refers to a street in Barcelona associated with prostitution, with the artwork practically representing a brothel. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is seen as the base on which Cubism is built. The subject matter is five women, believed to be escorts, who are cut down to simple forms and colors with dysmorphic, unstable, and twisted bodies. Picasso painted these women with no attempt to flatter the body as it wasn’t about beauty, realism, and wealth of women. He painted the women as he saw them, whether they would be sad and weeping, ranting and angry, or calm and content. In addition, the women's figures are solid-like and mostly referred to as being butter knives; this was thought to be outrageous due to the way he painted women’s bodies. Along with the shocking bodies and features, the women's faces portrayed are concerning. Picasso was influenced by Non-Western art and this is seen in the faces of three of the women, which are covered by masks suggesting that they are ancient. These shocking faces are thought to be inspired by African face masks (Golding, 1959). Picasso's painting was scandalous as no painting ever looked more violent and contributing to this was the hardly lit space. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is one of the most famous masterpieces in the world and by Picasso transforming his ideas and putting them into practice, he created a challenging work of art for all to be inspired by. Picasso, as controversial as he was, has had a massive impact on twentieth-century artists such as David Hockney, Ben Nicholson, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jackson Pollock.

Legacy of Impressionism and Cubism

Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso have transformed their new ideas to create these artistic movements respectively, Impressionism and Cubism. These inspirational artists challenged European understanding of subject matter, the application of paint, representing different points of perspective, and the canvas surface. Monet and Picasso painted sophisticated and influential works of art, specifically Monet's artwork Impression, Sunrise and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. These revolutionary and shocking artworks created worldwide appreciation of differing philosophy behind each artist's stylistic decisions. Modernists continue to craft challenging artworks which inspire fellow artists to move away from traditional art practices and create their own new ideas. The enduring impact of these movements can be seen in contemporary art, where artists often reference or draw inspiration from the innovative techniques pioneered by Monet and Picasso.

References:

• Chipp, H. B. (1968). Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics. University of California Press.
• Golding, J. (1959). Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. The Burlington Magazine.
• Richardson, J. (1991). A Life of Picasso: The Prodigy, 1881-1906. Random House.