Les Demoiselles D'Avignon
Pablo Picasso - 1907, Oil on canvas 244 x 234cm.
During the numerous sketches made for this painting, several changes were made. Initially there were two men in the work a medical student standing on the left and a sailor seated in the middle. In subsequent development of the composition they were removed, and the final picture was painted in June-July 1907 with only five original female figures. The heads of the two left hand figures are reminiscent of African sculptures which Picasso had seen at an exhibition at the Louvre in 1906. The formal qualities of this painting were crucial for the development of Cubism, The nudes are treated in a structured geometric way, their bodies twisted into unnatural poses. The two bodies on the far right appear to be unresolved and merge with their surroundings the background is also treated in a fractured way and pushed forward into the composition, making the space between the women to become tangled.