In this research paper, I have explained the art of cubism and its role. I have chosen the cubit painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” painted by Pablo Picasso. He was the famous cubist painter. Picasso and Braque were the innovators of the cubist painting. In this research paper, I have tried to explain the formal characteristics like color, theme and texture that were used in the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The paper also includes political and social factors related to the painting. In this paper I have also mentioned the interpretation of the art historians related to the painting.
About Cubism
Cubism can be defined as an advanced art movement that modernized European painting and sculpture in the early 20th century. The core essence of cubism is that instead of viewing subjects from a single, fixed angle, the sculptor breaks them up into a multiplicity of aspect, so that several aspects or features of the subject can be seen simultaneously. It is a wonderful way to express the complexity and depth of world in a simplified manner (Cubism, 2001).
Get Help With Your Essay
If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!
Essay Writing Service
Cubism is a unique format where square shapes are formed together. In cubism, the square shapes are also often softened with curves. In the artworks of a cubist, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form. The artist depicts the subject of his painting from a massive number of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint (Curtis, 1999).
One of distinct characteristics of Cubism is that the background and object planes interpenetrate with one another to create the shallow ambiguous space. The Cubist style emphasizes on the flat and two-dimensional surface of the picture plane. It rejects the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening and disproving the time-honored theories of art as the replication of nature. A cubist painter presents a new reality in paintings that depicts radically fragmented objects, whose several sides can be seen simultaneously. They do not copy the form, texture, and color (Cubism, 2001).
The chief creators or innovators of Cubism were Picasso and Gorges Braque. In the year1908, the term cubism was first used by the French art reviewer Louis Vauxcelles. After some years, the term was in wide use but the two creators of cubism avoid using it for a long time (Cubism, 2001). Cubism seems to be uniquely adjusted to the busy dynamic of contemporary life. Cubism consists of both theoretical and practical forms; practical form being more dominant (Curtis, 1999).
Formal characteristics of the work
Picasso was a painter as well as a sculptor. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was the most significant work of Picasso in the development of Cubism. Picasso uses angry definitive lines and a great concept of light and shadow (Picasso, 1996). With his artwork, Picasso was also a free thinker. He had a unique style and due to this unique style, he became the first artist to have fame during his lifetime. Picasso was a great innovative artist who used to search new ways to express space and forms in painting. There are different shades used by Picasso that describe the still life composition of women (Cubism, 2001).
The painting is designed with tempera paint using a flat style and a neutral pallet. In this painting of Picasso, collage papers are created by mixing colors and creating texture by using sponges. After the shapes are attached in place, oil pastels are used to create patterns and enhance the overall design. Picasso is used to apply different themes, styles and moods to design the painting (Picasso, 1996). All his paintings are different to each other. He tries to use very dark colors and textures, which make his painting unique and different. In the early modern art, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was widely held as an influential and decisive work (Picasso, 1996).
The painting is more a record of an artist in the process of changing his mind than a resolved composition. The forms are dislocated and inconsistent in style. In fact, they seem to be unfinished. It is a painting with overthrowing perspective, single viewpoint, local and decorative color and integral form (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 2008).
Picasso uses darker colors on the left side of the painting and warmer colors on the right side of the painting. The painting is slightly buff as compared to the paintings of Cezanne. The strong, harsh and different coloring has given the painting a different look in the cubist era (Picasso, 1996). The structure indicates the use of sharp white or black curves and outlines and cinnamon tone of the background at the left (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 2008). A harsh blue, as if a sudden glimpse of sky, surrounds the figure at the upper right. The middle figures’ warmly indeterminate body of Picasso’s painting. Contrasts of color and texture are reduced to a minimum, so as not to compete with the design.
Larger social/political context
The painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” was painted during the summer of 1907 by Picasso. According to Picasso, the cubism has came in a time period when the world was experiencing modernization in technology and medicine; and the societies were rapidly growing and developing as well (Picasso, 1996). The meaning of the painting in English was the Young Ladies of Avignon; it depicted five prostitutes in a brothel. It is one of the most important paintings in the genesis of modern art. There is a strong similarity in the dramatic clashing of light and dark tones and the overhead light source (Meighan, 2008).
The work of Picasso in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon truly introduced cubism as art of movement. His painting has been noted as the twentieth century’s most significant painting. His work depicted a crude version of prostitutes through a deformed style never seen before. The painting was an anti-idealist representation of un-ideal subject matter (Meighan, 2008).
Depictions of prostitutes and the theme of sexuality had been the subject of paintings in the past, but Les Demoiselles left an impact because of Picasso. He had portrayed the prostitutes in erotic poses with their arms recognizable positioned above their heads in order to show off their feminine, but offensively distorted female framework (Meighan, 2008). Picasso’s choice to use five figures in his work was to multiply the penetration of the bitter gaze created. The harsh life style gives sad expressions on the faces of the prostitutes, which in fact, lack any kind of emotion (Picasso, 1996).
To conceal their identity, the two women painted on the right are shown wearing African inspired masks. Through the representation of these prostitutes, Picasso conveyed a message of filth disease in the cubist style. He has deliberately changed the prostitute as a way to express the rising cultural awareness and effects of venereal disease, which had become a violent threat to these women’s lives (Meighan, 2008). According to Picasso, cubism is directly related to modernism. Picasso has his own perception to explain cubism. According to him, cubism is an expression of the mind’s relationship with the external world (Picasso, 1996).
Find Out How UKEssays.com Can Help You!
Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs.
View our services
He is of the opinion that it is a direct analysis of the awareness, the process of vision and the relationship of one’s unconscious that is based on one’s personal experiences. Cubism represents the process, which the mind undergoes in order to create a classical art from the past. Picasso’s Cubist art is the first aesthetic representation, which accurately conveys the process of reflexivity of the human mind. Picasso was a productive and creative artist. He has made near about 12,500 paintings, 2,500 original prints, 1,000 different ceramics, and 700 sculptures.
His works are often categorized in periods and each period is different in style and themes than the other. Picasso’s paintings are like pages from his diary (Picasso, 1996). He believed that painting is another way of keeping a diary. Picasso says that painting brings him a great pleasure and release. For him, painting is an extremely hard work.
He tells us that when he works on a painting, there is a feeling that he is climbing a mountain with a heavy load on his back, without even knowing when he will lose his balance (Picasso, 1996). Once the picture is completed, he feels exhausted and tired but at the same movement he enjoys a lot. He has created the pictures based on his own experiences. Picasso’s work is approved by all the cubist painters like Filla, Braque, Feininger, Dellunay, etc. He is used to paint on the real aspect of the life. He believes that painting should be such a medium that describes the things on its own (Picasso, 1996).
In the year 2007, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was described as the most influential work of art of the last 100 years. Picasso had the ability to interpret the most complex images in his own language (Picasso, 1996). There were many painters who could transform the sun into a yellow spot, but Picasso was the one, who with his art and intelligence could transform a yellow spot into the sun. The movement also inspired about the modern architecture, sculptures, clothes, and even literature (Art of Picasso, 2008).
Interpretation by two art historians
The painting seems to be a form that goes in all pursuits of spatial depth and maintains a relationship to the pictorial surface. Picasso restructured the painting into harsh and angular planes, which destroyed the spatial depth and ideal form of female nude. The painting is not flat, but it is shaded in a way that gives it different dimensions. The painting includes the concave or convex style and looks like a portion of solidified space (Art of Picasso, 2008).
The cubist painting constitutes a unique kind of matter, which imposes a new kind of integrity and continuity on the entire canvas. Each individual figure is united by a general geometrical principle, which overlays its own laws on to the natural proportions and merges almost completely with the background (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 2008). There are no differences of light and darkness that might lend shape to the women’s bodies and with the combination of several perspectives; this contributes to a general impression of perplexity in space. To reach the internal structures of objects and to establish that a picture is not a window on the world, Picasso simplifies the painting. The flat space in the painting is created by the definite solid outlining, tonal contrast and by both thick and heavy curves (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 2008).
Picasso was not interested in describing tone, depth or form of some of his painting. He expressed his indignation by making the use of imagination like the bull, the dying horse, a fallen warrior, a mother and dead child, a woman trapped in a burning building and a figure leaning from a window and holding out a lamp. The painting represented a revolutionary breakthrough in the history of modern art (Art of Picasso, 2008). The nudes that frame the composition already demonstrate the decisive change of direction in Picasso’s art. In terms of Cubism, this painting is of a seminal importance.
His revolt against the myth of feminine beauty is relatively insignificant when compared with his other rebellion. With this picture, Picasso wants to destroy the whole of Western art; not only the proportions, but the organic integrity and continuity of the human body also Choi, 2004). It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of this picture and the profound effect it has on art.
There has been a critical debate over the years on the Picasso painting that attempts to account for multiplicity of styles used within the work. The famous art historian Leo Steinberg in his landmark states that Picasso used different explanation for the wide range of stylistic attributes. Another art historian Rubin states that some of the figure’s faces symbolize the disfigurements of syphilis (Choi, 2004).
The painting of Picasso is created by following a series of brothel. Rubin interprets that the painting expresses the artist’s skepticism, his willingness to risk anarchy for freedom, his fear of disease and illness and most forcefully his deep-seated fear and disliking of the female body. The painting is sharp and pointed and has the influence of ancient Iberian sculpture. The faces have a compelling force that obliges to African sculpture. Picasso has sometime used Negro sculpture. Picasso has used the different objects, analyzed them and re-assembled in an abstracted form (Choi, 2004).
Conclusion
Cubist painting is an art form created through a modernized approach to expression of the mind’s interpretation of the natural world. Cubist art is a form based on art. Cubism is a unique format where square shapes are formed together. The artist depicts the subject of his painting from a massive number of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint (Meighan, 2008). Picasso was a very good painter and sculptor. He painting had the meaning and was different to others. He used to paint his own experiences and believed the painting should have some meaning. He used to create paintings with connection to reality.
References
Cubism, (2001). Retrieved April 11, 2008 from
http://www.ethnicpaintings.com/popular-painting-styles/cubism.html
Picasso, (1996). Retrieved April 11, 2008 from http://www.gospain.org/jewels/picasso.htm#cubscul
Cubism, (1994). Retrieved April 11, 2008 from http://www.pet-portraitartist.com/learning-to-paint-and-draw/painting-styles/Cubism.htm
Curtis, P. (1999). Sculpture 1900-1945: After Rodin. Published: Oxford publishing press.
Meighan, M. (2008). Presentations, Retrieved April 11, 2008 from http://www.students.sbc.edu/meighan07/Presentation.text.htm
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, (2008). Retrieved April 11, 2008 from http://www.geocities.com/rr17bb/LesDemoi.html
JH GALLERY, (2005). Retrieved April 11, 2008 from http://www.geocities.com/jhinais/
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Retrieved April 11, 2008 from http://artchive.com/artchive/P/picasso.html
Cubism, (2007). Retrieved April 11, 2008 fromhttp://www.centre-pompidou.net/education/ressources/ENS-cubisme_en/cubisme_en.html
Art of Picasso, (2008). Retrieved April 11, 2008 from http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/102066.html
Choi, E.(2004). Picasso and Early Cubism with Braque. Retrieved April 11, 2008 from http://www.people.vcu.edu/~djbromle/modern04/elizabethc/index.htm
We provide professional writing services to help you score straight A’s by submitting custom written assignments that mirror your guidelines.
Get result-oriented writing and never worry about grades anymore. We follow the highest quality standards to make sure that you get perfect assignments.
Our writers have experience in dealing with papers of every educational level. You can surely rely on the expertise of our qualified professionals.
Your deadline is our threshold for success and we take it very seriously. We make sure you receive your papers before your predefined time.
Someone from our customer support team is always here to respond to your questions. So, hit us up if you have got any ambiguity or concern.
Sit back and relax while we help you out with writing your papers. We have an ultimate policy for keeping your personal and order-related details a secret.
We assure you that your document will be thoroughly checked for plagiarism and grammatical errors as we use highly authentic and licit sources.
Still reluctant about placing an order? Our 100% Moneyback Guarantee backs you up on rare occasions where you aren’t satisfied with the writing.
You don’t have to wait for an update for hours; you can track the progress of your order any time you want. We share the status after each step.
Although you can leverage our expertise for any writing task, we have a knack for creating flawless papers for the following document types.
Although you can leverage our expertise for any writing task, we have a knack for creating flawless papers for the following document types.
From brainstorming your paper's outline to perfecting its grammar, we perform every step carefully to make your paper worthy of A grade.
Hire your preferred writer anytime. Simply specify if you want your preferred expert to write your paper and we’ll make that happen.
Get an elaborate and authentic grammar check report with your work to have the grammar goodness sealed in your document.
You can purchase this feature if you want our writers to sum up your paper in the form of a concise and well-articulated summary.
You don’t have to worry about plagiarism anymore. Get a plagiarism report to certify the uniqueness of your work.
Join us for the best experience while seeking writing assistance in your college life. A good grade is all you need to boost up your academic excellence and we are all about it.
We create perfect papers according to the guidelines.
We seamlessly edit out errors from your papers.
We thoroughly read your final draft to identify errors.
Work with ultimate peace of mind because we ensure that your academic work is our responsibility and your grades are a top concern for us!
Dedication. Quality. Commitment. Punctuality
Here is what we have achieved so far. These numbers are evidence that we go the extra mile to make your college journey successful.
We have the most intuitive and minimalistic process so that you can easily place an order. Just follow a few steps to unlock success.
We understand your guidelines first before delivering any writing service. You can discuss your writing needs and we will have them evaluated by our dedicated team.
We write your papers in a standardized way. We complete your work in such a way that it turns out to be a perfect description of your guidelines.
We promise you excellent grades and academic excellence that you always longed for. Our writers stay in touch with you via email.