Three Specific influences of Mademoiselles D' Avignon by Picasso - Essay Example

Prof’s Three Influences on Picasso’s “Les Demoislles d’Avignon” Art does not exist in a vacuum, but rather artists are both consciously and subconsciously affected by the artists and art that surround them. Picasso’s painting, “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” shows influence both from the artistic milieu in which Picasso worked but also his preferences and tastes in much older art. One of the most obviously influences on Picasso’s work is the work of an artist who lived centuries before him, but whom Picasso greatly admired, El Greco, a Spanish artist whose painting “The Vision of St.

John” provided a stylistic blueprint for Picasso’s work, especially in the monochrome depiction of the women. Another influence was Paul Cezanne, one of the earliest proto-cubists, going steps beyond realist depiction and trying to break down shapes into their fundamental elements such as cubes, spheres and cylinders – this influence gave the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon a proto-cubist feel – though not yet fully developed cubism, this painting does reject traditional perspective and overturn many of the rules of Western Art.

Finally, this painting has several elements of primitivism, possibly pointing to influence of Paul Gauguin, such as a single plane of action and possibly the integration of tribal masks on the leftmost two figures.