The Cubist Movement and Les Demoiselles dAvignon - Essay Example

Pablo Picasso: The Cubist Movement and ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ Modern artists working sincethe early part of the 1900s have dedicated themselves to depicting the range of human emotions within the colors and lines of their work. The modernists, such as Picasso, focused on the emotions themselves with little or no reference to the symbols or issues of the times. This was a reaction to the perfectionism of the photograph and the machine age and a justification for the continuation of the art of painting as an art form. The approach they took was to portray the realism of the subject by breaking the established rules of art in order to explore images or reflections of pure emotion. Lyotard (1984) describes this process as an attempt “to make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen nor made visible” (78). This “something that can be conceived but not seen nor made visible” is often referred to as the sublime, a quality of transcendent greatness “with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation” (Wikipedia, 2006). The presence of this sublime element, then, inspires the imagination in a specific direction based on which elements remain visible or understandable. Its significance is in the way in which it brings attention to the uncertainty of meaning inherent in the work, such that no resolution makes itself apparent and the viewer is forced to come to an understanding of his or her own. This establishes a communication between the art, the artist and the viewer that goes beyond the image on the canvas and remains individual for each viewer. For artists of the Modern period, the means to achieve this sublime element was to throw away much of the training they had received in art school regarding perspective, shading and composition. It was necessary instead to recapture the imagination and sense of wonder reflected in the types of drawings produced through the ‘pure’ filter of innocent children. This was accomplished primarily through the use of ‘primitive’ geometric forms. With an understanding of the theories and philosophies that informed his development of Cubism, some of the elements of Picasso’s painting ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’, in which he first introduced this artistic approach, are more available to interpretation. The cubist movement is now widely recognized as an early phase of the avant-garde. Author Peter Wollen recognized it in 1975 as a means of breaking the boundaries of traditional signifiers and symbols in order to make direct reference to the relationship between the signifier and the signified (Wollen, 1975). As this idea became further developed, the traditional approach of making reference to an established set of symbols within art was further broken down and explored through abstraction and minimalism. The ultimate breaking point of this was the examination of how the art medium was able to communicate a world of transition and change, reality and illusion within the very context of its delivery. “What soon emerged as the dominant strand was that theorized by Clement Greenberg as art’s self-interrogation of its own practices and materials, as calling attention to itself” (Lapsley & Westlake, 1989: 190). The idea was no longer a case of representation of the world outside as it was seen and understood by the observer, but instead was a representation of the art itself and the various ways in which it was used to convey an idea. This approach appealed primarily to those within the world of high art who were aware of the overall focus and understood the importance of the process in the understanding of the work, but even this took some time. Although ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ was not originally well-received, this artistic exploration was based not only on scientific ideas emerging at the time of its painting, but also upon sociologic concepts that were becoming increasingly evident with increasing globalization. The ideas expressed through the Cubist and subsequent movements plunged into the realm of phenomenology. This science recognized that what appears to one subject’s consciousness may not match exactly with the worldview held by a majority of others. There were entire realms of variations that equaled the number of individuals living. Alfred Schutz, in his investigation into Edmund Husserl’s writings regarding scientific objectivism, revealed the concept that we, as humans, use subjective ideas and meanings in order to define an apparently objective social world (Orleans, 2007). These subjective observations could be something as simple as what our definition of forest green might be or could extend into the most complex concepts of self or time. Despite the necessary subjectivity of these understandings, it remained generally felt that these ideas were more or less commonly held by most people and thus were felt to be objective truths, universally agreed upon and quickly understood. With increased globalization in the social and business worlds, the fallacy of this assumption became increasingly revealed, especially as the ideas being explored in the avant-garde of the Americas was becoming increasingly distant from that being explored by Europeans and vice versa (Wollen, 1975). With this realization, artists began to explore how their viewpoint remained unique from that of other artists and of other individuals by concentrating on the emotions or the essence of the experience rather than the representation of it (Walker, 2005). It was determined that while symbols, shapes and even colors could have different meanings to different people, human emotion is generally experienced through the same channels universally. What triggered these emotions differed, but the process of evoking emotional response could also be treated in a more or less universal way. Thus, it was also being recognized that the viewpoints held by individuals within the general audience would necessarily bring their own distortions into the dialogue established between the art, the artist and the viewer and this would affect the way the art would be experienced. With the prevalence of the necessary science and philosophy in place, the art world had already managed to embrace some of the ideas inherent in the Cubist approach, providing Picasso with a base upon which to build. According to Michael Delahunt (2007), both Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, the two artists most credited with founding the movement, were inspired by the works of French impressionist painter Paul Cezanne and the pointillist painter Georges Seurat as well as by the intellectual works of the Fauves and the primitive pieces coming out of Africa. While their approaches changed and expanded over time, from the beginning of the 1900s through to Picasso’s later works, there were several key elements that remained unchanged. For example, the focus on the picture plane and the break-up of images into smaller fragments and fractals remained, to some degree, important throughout Picasso’s career. Picasso’s works, characteristic of the modern abstractionists, focused on presenting graphic images of emotions without relying on true representations of objects. In his painting ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’, Picasso presents each figure as an abstract collection of geometrical shapes arranged in such a way as to denote the specific emotions and feelings his figures are experiencing. Based upon the women within a Parisian bordello, there are five figures discernable within the image, all female. Only one of the figures is sitting while the others strike different supposedly seductive poses. One woman, ostensibly in the foreground and with a decidedly more masculine body, stands holding back a red curtain so as to reveal the other four. The woman sitting and the woman standing behind her both wear fantastic African-inspired masks while the other women display decidedly unattractive faces as they become distorted through the painter’s vision. The only other discernable feature within the painting is a small plate of fruits in the bottom center. When the piece was first introduced, it was met with a resounding rejection from the art world primarily as it rejected most of the traditional ‘rules’ of art. There were numerous discrepancies from what was generally acknowledged as ‘art.’ First, Picasso failed to idealize the human form in his distorted view of the women’s faces and he declined any attempts to create an illusion of depth within the frame. Critics everywhere seemed to react to it in the same way. For most, the image “seemed to everyone something mad or monstrous … Derain told me that one day Picasso would be found hanging behind his big picture” (dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler cited in Rubin, 1983: 348). The subjects are only abstractly presented through the heavy use of geometric shapes and blocks of color, allowing them to become symbols of the general rather than true depictions of real people. They are wooden, unnatural in most respects and impossible. Several critics determined Picasso was making an attack on the women because of their profession. After its disastrous debut, the painting was rolled up and stored in Picasso’s studio for approximately 30 years before it again saw the light of day. A new look at the painting, now better informed by his other works and the greater dissemination of the theories and concepts that informed this work brought about a new analysis based upon what Picasso was able to accomplish through his concentration on form and color. In most of Picasso’s works, including this one, it can be seen that colors and shapes take on extreme importance in conveying the emotional content of the work. The women are undeniably present and take on the attitudes of live women in the form of their poses. The two in the center, for example, seem deliberately sensuous, with “their arms crooked over their heads in an age-old formula for seductive femininity” (Chave, 1994: 598). Their bodies are depicted in a strange combination of delicate curves and jagged hard edges. Bent elbows and knees take on dagger sharpness while even the breasts seem as if they could easily put out an eye. The women are surrounded by light blue gauzy curtains that end up looking more like sharp shards of glass as they separate to reveal the fifth prostitute entering the room. The distortion of their faces and the less-than-loving attention given to their bodies makes it easy to understand why earlier critics would have felt Picasso was attacking the women. However, critics of the 30s and 40s instead saw the women of the painting as the attackers rather than the victims. According to Leo Steinberg, the image was a “tidal wave of female aggression … an onslaught” (Steinberg, 1972: 22). In keeping with these weapon-like angles, another critic called the painting simply “a massacre” committed by “those avenging furies of a new order” (Kozloff, 1972: 35, 37). The impression that these women are aggressive and attacking seems to have struck Robert Rosenblum with particular force as he referred to the painting as an “explosion” in which “five nudes force their eroticized flesh upon us with a primal attack” (Rosenblum, 1973: 45). Even the fruit in the painting seems sadly insufficient, sickly and withered as if the hostility in the room were too much for it to retain its appeal. These interpretations, of course, depend entirely upon the positioning of the viewer, as Picasso expected, and this viewer’s interpretation of these shapes and colors. Solid areas of color refine and define the impressions Picasso was struggling to convey even as he was fully conscious that his interpretation of life, color and form was necessarily different from the interpretations others would observe within his work. The painting is a delicate balance of deep reds, very light blues and medium tans. Although the subject is a group of prostitutes, most often associated with the bright red of passion, Picasso chooses to deepen the color to a rusty blood shade that emphasizes the concept that these women are not new to the profession and not so full of the passion their profession would suggest. The women are not covered or even surrounded by this red color, but merely framed by it on one side while their reddish skin tones provide the necessary balance. The lightness around them could be interpreted as a symbol of their womanliness, a suggestion of inherent softness and as providing them with some semblance of privacy. There is an impression that these women are hidden behind the red curtain whenever the one woman, presumably the madam, is not holding it back, suggesting that they are trapped within a world of curtains, unacceptable in the greater society. With regard to the madam figure, Chave notes “that her two hands and one of her feet are visible … whereas, among the other four women, only a single hand and no feet were depicted: thus Picasso symbolically disabled those figures” (1989: 599). This single visible hand is seen clutching at the edge of one of the light-colored sheets lying on the ground. The hand is halfway between going up or coming down. Just which direction this hand was going depends to a great degree upon how the overall image is seen. If the women are seen in a sympathetic light, this hand might be attempting to raise the sheet so as to cover more sensitive areas from the viewer. Other interpretations of the image have held the women to be highly aggressive and ‘attacking’ the viewer. Should this position, the hand could be moving aside the covering so as to present a more tempting target. Confident women might clutch at a sheet in this was so as to have some control over what is seen or not seen during the bargaining process or may simply be carrying the sheet casually as something she happened to have in her hand. The colors surrounding the women help to provide the viewer with an impression of old habits and tired routines rather than the frenetic energy a client might associate with a brothel. “The woodenness of the women’s stances and their faces’ masklike stolidity suggest that they know they are party to a tiresome artifice” (Chave, 1989: 598). This idea is reinforced in the old red of the curtains as well as in the desiccated nature of the fruit in the image. Some of the breasts are painted with delicate curves as would be more expected and the women’s faces do not immediately indicate aggression so much as they demonstrate a lack of concern regarding what the potential client might decide. “The masquerade … is what women do … in order to participate in man’s desire, but at the cost of giving up [their own]” (Luce Irigaray cited in Heath, 1986: 54). Their eyes, at least the ones that can be seen, seem to be sunken in hollows, further highlighting the concept of women tired of their profession and well aware of its relative merits and drawbacks. The imagery of the Africanized masks on two of the women has often been pointed to as a source of the general hostility felt toward the piece. Here, too, there are multiple interpretations possible. The masks are typically associated with ideas of evil and aggression, a means of terrorizing the male client and the male viewer. This is because the women are seen to openly adopt and accept their inner animal natures, allowing them to be seen on the outside without the control of the male over them (Rubin, 1983: 629). These women are mysterious, unreadable and only under the temporary partial control of those men willing to pay for their time and body. However, these masks can also be interpreted as a means of allowing these two women to distance themselves from their profession. Unlike men who have the luxury of considering themselves bankers during the day and husbands and fathers in the evening, prostitutes are considered prostitutes whether on or off duty. This may be an indication of the façade of their work and the falseness of their activities. “[The masks] makes fun of the prostitutes’ clients, despoiling their sexual appetites. In the boldly squatting figure at the lower right – with her backside turned as if she were ‘mooning’ the johns, while her mask is swiveled forward to terrify them – and in the energy of the woman barging through the curtains above her, I see bodies that educe comparatively natural and confident postures” (Chave, 1989: 599). In this respect, then, the women can be seen as not necessarily aggressive, but independent and assertive. They make themselves available to any man who has the right amount of cash in hand, but they are not free, they are not available for anything they do not agree to and they refuse to adopt the pretension of the game. Although they are hidden behind a curtain, they are strong and open about themselves and what they have to offer and they make no apologies for it. Finally, there is yet another concept of the mask that is not often discussed. This painting was among the first of its kind, today recognized as the turning point between the art of the past and the art for the future. Picasso was working with scientific theories and philosophical positions that were still not widely known nor understood. His concepts regarding how these ideas should translate into art were built off of concepts held by well-known and accepted artists working just before he created this painting, but Picasso was taking these lessons one step further. It was mentioned at the beginning of this discussion that one of the primary components of modern art was an attempt to return to the ‘primitive’ expression of ‘innocent’ art as a means of achieving ‘true’ emotional expression. Picasso, aware that his approach was going to cause shockwaves, may have included these African masks as a means of reminding his viewing audience of the new concepts that had worked to help inform the piece as a permanent encouragement to consider the philosophy behind the art as expression rather than simply considering the final image result alone. Picasso’s presentation of his work, not in the traditional formats of the past but in his own unique approach of symbolic emotional representation, permits these kinds of numerous interpretations and considerations. While he probably did not consider all of the concepts and ideas that have been developed regarding this work in the more than 70 years since it re-entered the public eye, he undoubtedly considered some and left room open for other approaches as well. In doing so, he illustrated how an approach to art that realized a single interpretation would never occur even in something concisely laid out could be successful by applying to more common emotional responses through less realistic imagery and appeals to emotion rather than interpretation. The emotion of the piece leaves one puzzling almost as much as the various interpretations that have been offered over the years and no definitive ‘answer’ can be made available. For this reason, it is impossible to determine who is ‘right’ in their response to the painting. White men will inevitably respond to it differently than women of any color while those of color who have experienced acts of discrimination may yet approach the painting from a differing perspective and thus come to differing conclusions. This was, I believe, Picasso’s intent. References Chave, Anna C. (December 1994). “New Encounters with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: Gender, Race and the Origins of Cubism.” The Art Bulletin. Vol. 76, N. 4: 596-611. Delahunt, Michael. (2007). “Cubism.” Artlex. Available March 15, 2008 from Heath, S. (1986). “Joan Riviere and the Masquerade.” Formations of Fantasy. V. Burgin, J. Donald & C. Kaplan (Eds.). London. Kozloff, M. (September 1972). “Cubism and the Human Comedy.” Artnews. Vol. 71, N. 5: 35-41. Lapsley, Robert & Westlake, Michael. (1989). Film Theory: An Introduction. Manchester University Press. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Orleans, Myron. (March 1, 2007). “Phenomenology.” Encyclopedia of Sociology. Available March 15, 2008 from Picasso, Pablo. (1907). “Les Demoiselles dAvignon.” Oil on canvas. New York: Museum of Modern Art. Rosenblum, Robert. (April 1973). “The ‘Demoiselles d’Avignon’ Revisited.” Artnews. Vol. 72, N. 4. Rubin, W. (1983). “From Narrative to ‘Iconic’ in Picasso: The Buried Allegory in ‘Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table’ and the Role of ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Art Bulletin. Vol. 65, N. 4: 615-649. Steinberg, L. (September 1972). “The Philosophical Brothel, Part 1.” ArtNews. Vol. 71, N. 5: 20-29. Walker, Anna. (2005). The Structural Film: Moving Towards a Cinema of Consciousness. Available March 15, 2008 from Wikipedia contributors. (2006). “Sublime (philosophy).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Available March 15, 2008 from Wollen, Peter. (1975). “The Two Avant-Gardes.” Printed in Readings and Writings. London: Semiotic Counter-Strategies, (1982). Read More