Les Demoiselles d'Avignon marks a radical break from traditional composition and perspective in painting. It depicts five naked women composed of flat, splintered planes whose faces were inspired by Iberian sculpture and African masks. The compressed space they inhabit appears to project forward in jagged shards, while a slice of melon in the still life at the bottom of the composition teeters on an upturned tabletop. Picasso unveiled the monumental painting in his Paris studio after months of revision. The Avignon of the work's title is a reference to a street in Barcelona famed for its brothels.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907
Oil on canvas. H. 243,9; W. 233,7 cm
New York, Museum of Modern Art
© Photo 2015. Digital Image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York / Scala, Florence
© Succession Picasso, Paris 2018
© Rmn-Grand Palais, Paris 2018t
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