Picasso and the Birth of Cubism Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was a prolific Spanish-born artist whose works encompass the many different artistic styles which developed over the century of his life. He is, however, credited with one particular piece of art which is a sort of precursor to the development of the "cubist" style. This painting is the work entitled, "Les Desmoiselles d"Avignon", painted in Paris in 1907.

The subject was a depiction of five prostitutes of a Barcelona brothel. The painting is entitled "the young ladies" - a sarcastic description for these ladies of ill repute. The piece was very revolutionary in the world of art because Picasso broke the traditional rules of representational art, especially with regard to the nude body. The painting was moving in the direction of a cubist style, in that the bodies of the women are fragmented and seem to be put back together using multiple perspectives. The bodies appear to have been exploded into different planes and views and them haphazardly reassembled on the canvas. One crouching figure is depicted from the back, with the face looking directly at the viewer. Rather than being sensual, the painting is alarming and brutal in its depiction of these women. The painting evokes a feeling of danger through the use of African masks for the faces of the young ladies. This shows the influence of African art which was becoming known through world expositions. The fruit in the picture is depicted as sharp objects. The melon resembles a sharp curved knife blade. The background of icy blue geometric planes obtrudes into the foreground breaking up any sense of continuity of the subjects and giving the painting a very cold feeling as well. ... so what is "cubist" painting?

Cubism was a bold new distinctive language of art in which the artists were openly rebelling against the representational style of the Renaissance. Cubist Art is NOT about representation of nature and objects. It is about geometric shapes and angles. The use of layering, and fragmentation of the subject is predominant. Cubist paintings are not colouristic; many are very monotone. They do not have a foreground and a background. Rather than looking into the picture, the subject seems to spill out of the frame. An excellent example of Cubist Painting is Man With A Violin by Pablo Picasso. (1911) It is done primarily in monochromatic browns,tan,gray, and black tones. The painting is about a man with a violin, but it appears as if the subject has exploded and then all the fragments are layered back into the canvas. The geometric shapes are more like a grid on which fragments of the subject are placed or even hidden within, for the viewer to analyze at length, and reconstruct the subject for themselves. The painting is more about the process of art than the subject itself.