Breton recognized Pablo Picasso as one of the pioneers of surrealism art. Breton defined surrealism as “physic automatism, in its pure state,” a creative effort guided by thought functions free of rational control and “exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern”. Surrealist art was based on the artist’s conscious effort to capture unconscious experience. Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon was is one of Picasso famous surrealist painting that launched cubism on the 20th century art as it highlights the women of Barcelona in a very unique way. This painting was revolutionary and controversial, and let to anger and disagreement among his closest friend.
Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon film was very interesting. It explained in detail the creation of Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon. After watching the film, I learned that Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon was a result of Pablo Picasso and Matisse rivality that started in 1906 when stein introduced them to each other. Picasso worked on Les Demoiselles d'Avignon as he had never worked on any painting before. He sketch hundreds and hundreds of drawings day and night putting all his ideas on paper. His relationship with his lover Olivier started to deteriorate. She became furious, possessive, and jealous, he rented a second studio where he was making love to the prostitutes and painting completely naked due to the hot weather. By late summer 1907 he finished Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon his first cubic picture. It had 5 naked women with sharp angular body and triangular breast. The cold, icy blues contrasting with the brown tones, gives the painting an impression of general discomfort. The faces of thep women looks like a mask, the eyebrow, the ears and the shape of the eyes all create a mask-like quality. Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon was the precursor of a new style know as a cubism. The two central females have profile noses but frontal eyes, their breast and hips are sharp and angular, the space between the creatures, reflects his inspirations in the creation of Cubism. On Picasso’s preliminary sketches, two men were supposed to be included in the painting, a sailor seated among the women and medical student on the left side holding a skull, but they were removed from the final composition. Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon is believed by critics to be influenced by African art when Picasso visited the ethnographic museum the Palais du Trocaderon in Paris in 1907, months before completing Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon. Picasso denied it all, however, many art historians remain skeptical about his denials. In 1916 the painting was exhibited in public for the first time, but it wasn’t sold, so it returned to his studio where it stayed for 8 more years. In 1924 Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon was sold to Jacques Doucet and was displayed in his studio until he died in 1929. In 1937 the painting sailed to New York and was displayed in a Manhattan gallery, until it was bought by the New York Museum of Modern Art where is currently exhibited.
Many areas of the film spoke to me, I was very surprised knowing that he was unfaithful to his wife while he was painting Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon. I cannot imagine how terrible must have been for his wife to tolerate all his behavior. I think that the mistresses in his life were his inspiration, as he created his painting based on their body and their sexual activity. Another area that got my attention was when the x-ray images were taken from the Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon proved that Picasso had painted over two of the heads to give them the African style of the mask. It was very interesting for me to find out how can a painting reveal changes after a good examination. The x-ray revealed that the crouching figure had an eye on the area where the bridge of the nose is now and had a lawyer of yellow paint that can still be seen through the cracks in the final paint layer. The repainting of the heads were inspired by his visit at the ethnographic museum the Palais du Trocaderon in
