My greatest artistic emotions were felt when the sublime beauty of sculptures made by anonymous artists from Africa suddenly appeared to me. These works by a man of religious faith, passionate and strictly logical, are the most powerful and beautiful the human imagination has produced.
Pablo Picasso
In the autumn of 1906, Picasso undertook a major change of direction in his art. Under the influence of Iberian art, and Romanesque sculpture in particular, as well as Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne, he roughly simplified forms, foreshadowing and initiating the revolution of cubism embodied by The Women of Avignon (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon; now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York). During this period, he focused almost exclusively on the female body, albeit often on androgynous versions. In numerous works and studies, he rejected illusionism in favor of a new expressive language that featured construction through the articulation of essential forms, as well as the use of tight hatching and a color palette limited to ochers and, later, grays. The emergence of this radical language, which reduces the parts of the body to signs, was largely because of Picasso’s interest in non-Western cultures, particularly African and Oceanian, which he discovered at the Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1907. The simultaneous popularity of photographs of colonial propaganda, in which Black bodies were staged in primal settings that were meant to convey the superiority of European culture, directly affected the artist. In this “laboratory” of Picasso’s art, the experimental relationship he established between painting, sculpture, and photography began playing a decisive role.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Study for Standing Nude
(Étude pour Nu debout)
Early 1908
Graphite pencil on paper
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP562
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Seated Nude (study for The Women of Avignon)
(Nu assis; étude pour Les Demoiselles d’Avignon)
Paris, winter 1906–7
Oil on canvas
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP10
While the pose of this seated nude has been borrowed from Boy with Thorn, an ancient Roman bronze sculpture, the treatment given to it here by Picasso tells us more about his exposure to African and Oceanian masks, as well as the influence of the Iberian sculpture on display in the Louvre at that time. Reinterpreting Cézanne’s lesson on geometrization, the artist offers a simplified view of female anatomy that blurs the genders: the breasts take on the appearance of pectoral muscles, while the round stomach looks like abdominals. Every muscle is prominent; the hands and feet are massive and planted firmly.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Bust (study for The Women of Avignon)
(Buste; étude pour Les Demoiselles d’Avignon)
Paris, spring 1907
Oil on canvas
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP17
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Head of a Man (Tête d’homme)
Paris, fall 1908
Gouache on wood
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP26
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Study for The Dryad (Étude pour La Dryade)
[Paris], June–July 1907
Graphite pencil and gouache on paper
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP619 (v)
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Standing Nude (Nu debout)
Paris, June–July 1907
Ink on paper
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP540 (v)
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Man with a Guitar (Homme à la guitare)
Paris, fall 1911[–13]
Oil on canvas
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP34
This painting is characteristic of analytical cubism, which aimed to restore the three-dimensionality of a subject on a single surface by translating it into geometric facets. The model is shattered into a multitude of planes that spread out and intermingle in a space belonging to a rectilinear grid. Within these shades of gray, Picasso has kept some details intact, such as the musician’s mustache, the wall molding, and the rosette of the mandolin, inviting the viewer to decipher what is like the musical score of a new genre.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Mother and Child (Mère et enfant)
Paris, summer 1907
Oil on canvas
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP19
Likely inspired by the Romanesque Virgin and Child in Gósol that Picasso would have seen while staying in the village the previous summer, this image of a mother and her child testifies to his search for a simplified visual language. Painted at the same time as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, this canvas also bears the mark of the artist’s recent fascination with African, Oceanian, and Iberian sculpture. The faces here are deeply schematized, with bright, non-imitative colors adding emphasis.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Three Studies of a Female Nude (Trois études de nu féminin)
Paris, early 1909
Ink on paper
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP627
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Female Nude with Raised Arm (Femme nue au bras levé)
Paris, early 1909
Ink and wash on paper
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP626
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Study for Nude with Drapery: Reclining Nude
(Étude pour Nu à la draperie: Nu couché)
Paris, 1907
Pastels on laid paper
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP547
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Head of a Woman (Fernande)
(Tête de femme [Fernande])
Paris, fall 1909
Bronze
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP243
Picasso’s cubist research blossomed in a perpetual dialogue between the second and third dimensions, with various techniques enriching one another in turn. In this portrait of his companion Fernande Olivier, which finds correspondences in his drawing, the face is made up of multiple facets, with the alternation of ridges and hollows favoring a dynamic play of light and shadow. In addition to simulating volume, paradoxically by an absence of material, the artist suggests that the head is moving dynamically, thanks to a twist of the neck.
Fernande Olivier (1881–1966)
Fernande Olivier, whose real name was Amélie Lang, was born in 1881 in Paris. Married against her will in 1899, she fled in 1900 and decided to lead an independent life. Initially interested in a career as a teacher, she eventually became a professional model for a number of Parisian artists. This was how she met Picasso; in fact, one of the women in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon would be based on her. Olivier and Picasso were involved intermittently between 1905 and 1912. Passionate about literature, she was herself a writer, and known particularly for Picasso and His Friends (Picasso et ses amis; 1933), an account of her bohemian years with the artist. She died in Neuilly in 1966.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Young Naked Boy (Jeune Garçon nu)
Paris, fall 1906
Oil on canvas
Musée national Picasso-Paris
Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979. MP6
