Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is among the most radical works that changed the course of twentieth-century art and opened the way to Cubism. Picasso’s decision to make this painting grew out of several sources at once: the atmosphere of Barcelona’s brothels, the stark simplicity of African and Iberian sculpture, Cézanne’s way of breaking form into volumes, and the artist’s desire to free the human figure from traditional ideals of beauty.
Five female figures stand at the center of the composition, but they are not placed in a classical space; instead, they occupy an environment split into sharp planes, almost as if it were breaking apart. The mask-like hardness of the faces is not merely a stylistic choice, but a new way of seeing that deliberately unsettles the viewer.nnPicasso began the work in late 1906 and completed it in 1907.
During the process he made hundreds of sketches, showing that the painting did not appear all at once but emerged from a long period of searching and formal reinvention. Early versions included male figures, but the final composition builds its entire meaning around the female body. Art historians regard the rejection of traditional perspective, the refusal of a single fixed viewpoint, and the presentation of figures from multiple angles at once as one of the decisive turning points in modern art.
The two figures on the right, with faces that recall African masks, clearly reflect Picasso’s interest in so-called primitive and archaic art during those years.nnThe title refers to Carrer d’Avinyó in Barcelona, where brothels were located. Picasso later emphasized that the work was not simply a scene of nudes, but a challenge to the very structure of painting.
Classical idealization of the nude gives way here to tension; the bodies appear both seductive and threatening. That double effect explains why the painting caused such shock when it was first seen. Considered too radical at the time, it later came to be recognized as one of the works that marked the beginning of twentieth-century art.nnToday Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
