1

Shan Lu
Prof. Julia Bozer
INTRO to Art History
19 April 2015
Avignon Girl
The first time I saw the Avignon Girl (see Figure 1) was during class. I was impressed
by it because the whole picture gave me some complex feelings and awaked my interesting in
art. Thus, I went to the The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which is located in NYC for
this picture.

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles dAvignon (1907); oil on canvas.

Pablo Picasso painted Avignon Girl in 1907, and it was considered as the first cubist
picture even though it stills a transitional work. Based on the definition in the Metropolitan
museum of art, the Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early
twentieth century. It was created by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 18811973) and Georges Braque
(French, 18821963) in Paris between 1907 and 1914. Therefore, many artists describe the
object from many angles and place it into the same screen in order to express the most

complete image of the object. All angles of objects stacked staggered create a lot of vertical
angles and parallel lines. Some scattered shadows result in that Cubist picture does not have
the three-dimensional perspective illusion of traditional Western painting method. The themes
intersected with screens cause the images to create a cubist painting features of a twodimensional space. Whats more, this work not only marks Picasso's personal art history
major turning the climax, but also a revolutionary breakthrough in the history of modern
Western art led to the birth of Cubism movement. It brought a new idea and concept to
artistes at that time. Also, the "Avignon girl" broke the traditional way of Western painting
and characteristics composition in some degree. Under the influence of El Greco, Cezanne,
and Iberian and African art, Pablo Picasso brought the geometry method to the climax in the
early twenty century.
I chose this work because of many reasons. First, Pablo Picasso is my favorite artist and
his paintings are different from any artistes during twenty century. He was the founder of
modern art, and the main representative of the Western modernist painting. He walked among
many genres and changed different art techniques into his work. He became the greatest
artists of the most liberal at that time, and was regarded as one of the West's most influential
artists of the twentieth century. Second, this painting has a special revolutionary meaning in
the 20th century art history. "Avignon girl" opened a new French Cubism, and Picasso and
Braque painting has become an influential painting style. During the after ten years, this
painting actually make an unprecedented development in French cubist painting, and even
spread to other areas of ballet, stage design, literature, music and so on. It gave a significant
impact on society at that period. Third, I think that this work brought me some feelings and
awaked my interesting in art. This painting includes a lot of Cubism theories. Cubism artists
pursue fragmentation analysis, re-mix form, and form separate screen with many
combinations of debris patterns for artists to show their final target. Thus, the whole picture

can be thought like many pieces are combined into one piece. For me, my major is
mathematic, and I am really interested in the geometry so that I think that this work attract me
in some degree. For the first time I saw this picture in class, I was wondered how the whole
picture combined by many different pieces in a balance. I have to say that this work left me a
lot of impression at that time. When I went to the museum and stood before this picture, I was
shocked because I could not imagine that Pablo Picasso combined the whole large picture in a
harmonies balance and expressed some emotions in this picture. Thus, I am enjoy in this
paintings whole feeling, and Pablo Picassos painting style also remind me some personal
ideas related to this work. Therefore, I chose this work to do some researches and talk about
since it awaked my interesting in art and the cubism style inform me some interpretations and
experiences in this work.
In addition, I want to talk about the main concepts and characteristics in this painting
associated with our in-class discussion. When I stood in front of the Avignon Girl, I saw
that the obvious thing is that there are five naked women filled the picture along the diagonal
of the screen in this huge picture. The whole picture starts from the upper left corner of the
hand, to the lower right corner of the body crouched into this picture as an end three vertical
parts. As we can see in the figure 1, three women stand in the left hand side, and two women
stand in the right hand side. Pablo Picasso combined these different aspects of the five parts
of the characters in a single plane. It seems like he put the body broken down into simple
geometric shapes and flexible and colorful pieces, and then combine them to form the body,
space and background of all things need to be expressed in this picture. Moreover, the whole
picture make everything warping, such as women's breasts become distorted positive side,
and the front face appeared with a side of nose, even a face would have wrong position facial
features and showing elongated or stretched state. All this pictures presents a single plane of
the screen without a sense of three-dimensional perspective, and all characters and

backgrounds use color to complete in an eccentric distortion and exaggeration style, but there
are outstanding contrast control, giving a strong impact perspective. Picasso also learn and
absorb a number of African mysticism artistic elements, such as the two extremes distorted
faces in the picture, distorted parts, and red, black and white color contrast. It looks
monstrous, and filled with mysterious colors terrorism. Moreover, "Avignon" is a small town
home of Picasso in Barcelona, Spain, and in the whole picture. It performs with these girls,
some prostitutes, are soliciting on the street. All this painting filled with strong discontent and
irony emotion. Furthermore, as we discussed about the art movements in class, the Avignon
girl is regarded as an important milestone in western art history during 20th century. It is the
first art creation, which is considered as the beginning of Cubism, and brings a revolutionary
changing in that period in many areas. Personally, I think that this painting has a lot of special
meaning for the development of art history and also remind me some ideas of mathematic.
Therefore, the Avignon girl is a significant product in 20th century and has a far-reaching
influence in art history and our society.
In conclusion, the Avignon girl is different from the previous works in 20th century. It
is important for the development of Western art and it is a completely broken through of the
traditional Western painting. Also, it breaks the static observation and one-sided point of view
from a fixed objective with mode of reproduction. Moreover, Picasso inaugurates a new
theory of Cubism dynamic observation and cavalier perspective, which are similar with the
traditional Chinese painting theory in some degree. Thus, the cubist painting becomes an
image of free association by transforming the objective, and recreate a kind of visual imagine
structure. Meanwhile, it is also the spiritual freedom in the history of Western art. I love it.
Work Cited
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm