Essay Database

Pablo Picasso's, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", 1907 Paris, depicts five women, presumably prostitutes, in a brothel. They have been painted using arabesque line, but in arabesque color, unlike the Fauvists. The faces of the figures have primitive looks of African and Egyptian sculptures, and the two figures on the right seem to be blending and morphing/merging into the background. There is a good feel of the 3-dimensional being painted onto a 2-dimensional surface, as well as …

…reality. Traditionally the artist was meant to recreate the appearance of people and objects from one viewpoint, setting them in a deep space. Picasso tried to create a new way of interpreting reality by looking from different viewpoints at once. Thus, when art historian's look back today at what Pablo Picasso did for cubism, he surpassed the limitations of just cubism, he changed the way people looks at art for the rest the 20th century.