Assignment 1: MOMA Museum Visit
Title: Picasso’s Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon
Enid Farber
Mentor: Raul Manzano
Date: September 20, 2008
It seems like all humankind is preoccupied with sex and sexuality. Sexual themes are common in art and seem to permeate all mediums. Our modern culture has pretty much rendered sexual taboos obsolete. But this was not the case during the post-impressionist art era even though sexual compulsions were surely as prevalent then as they are now.
I do not consider myself overly preoccupied with sex nor a scholar of Freudian theory or sexuality, bit I am admittedly fascinated with three paintings I observed at MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art) during my class tour there and what I experienced as a deep concern or distraction with those carnal matters by three masters Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Rene Magritte. However for the purpose of this first paper, I will concentrate only on Picasso.
Pablo Picasso was possibly the most prolific, brutish personality with a paintbrush. His objectification of prostitutes and women is boldly stated in his Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon. The painting is grand in its dimensions and lends itself to the fierceness, power and dominance of the women he evokes. I can imagine Picasso in the prime of his virility, needing and wanting to conquer these ladies of the night and to feel stronger and more empowered by these larger than life women. The in-your-face character of the painting commands respect even if the subjects are depraved in the eyes of most beholders.
Nonetheless, these less than virtuous women exude warrior like personas. Picasso painted like no one before had dared to use a brush on canvas. The figures are angular and sharp, the edges are like blades that can defend and will defy; the women seem to be warning, “don’t get too close as I can hurt you”. Picasso, like most of society at that time, was worried about disease, (the kind that is associated with unprotected sex in particular) and his use of African masks can be linked with that pathological mindset. These masks were thought to have some magical powers to eradicate this illness. But they also are associated with bestiality and Picasso’s virile nature might have been peaking at this time. However Picasso added an occasional curve that serves to soften these hardened ladies that reminds us that they are indeed women just as assuredly as he is a man.
Picasso did not approach his women or this painting lightly even if he was a known misogynist. He spent almost six months conceiving and drafting this painting that would rest on the precipice of The Modernism Movement and all those movements heretofore. It was a seminal painting in post-impressionist times and predated but gave rise to Cubism. The sharp, graphic chunks of geometry that constitutes Cubist art, began to take shape in this eight foot masterpiece.
In further elucidating the aspects that I have chosen to focus on, the following quotation from Picasso himself, affirms my belief that this paintings extreme confrontational and brazen style results from a man’s compulsive need to challenge. In Andre Malraux’s, La tete d’obsidienne, Picasso said: “People need to be woken up, their way of identifying things, shattered. Unacceptable images should be created”. Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon cannot be ignored; its force can draw in even the most innocent and casual observer. Challenging convention and an aggressive spirit are two basic components of Picasso’s nature that were most apparent to me (a confronted viewer) as I pondered this work.
I viewed this masterpiece as an artist whose chosen method of expression is through a different medium that implements another set of tools and techniques. I tried to imagine the man behind the façade of this painting who asserts himself vigorously through five deconstructed female figures. Picasso’s own words that I read on the Museu Picasso website, once again resonated with me.
“Everyone wants to understand painting. Why not try to understand the songs of a bird? Why does one love the nights flowers, everything around me, without trying to understand them? But in the case of painting people have to understand.”
That statement of Picasso’s conjures up passages in the textbook, Interpreting Art: Reflecting, Wondering, and Responding by Terry Barrett. In chapter eight, on the Principles for Interpreting Art, Barrett takes on the idea of over interpretation of art, a notion that has always troubled me. I am concerned that we run the risk of convoluting the meaning of art by over interpreting. Can we not sometimes just enjoy the great gift of life without obsessing over it’s meaning? Picasso’s statement seems to suggest that sometimes it is enough just to “stop and smell the flowers”, to purely enjoy beauty but that people have imposed their will to completely comprehend a painting at all costs. Yet his paintings are anything but subtle, they demand attention, they are not passive, there is no way to be in the same room with these paintings or to have been in a room with the painter and not notice. Ultimately, I wonder, when viewing Picasso’s complex art, whether he really desired to have it understood or just admired and appreciated? Perhaps his work was reflective of a troubled and complicated man and all he truly sought was acceptance.
Citations:
Malraux, Andre. “Picasso in Conversation/La tete d’obsidienne/Gallinard.” Museu Picasso. 1974. 20 Sept. 2008 http://www.bcn.cat/museupicasso/en/picasso/conversation.html.
Zervos, Christian. “Picasso in Conversation/Conversation avec Picasso/Cahiers d’art.” Museu Picasso. 1935. 20 Sept. 2008
http://www.bcn.cat/museupicasso/en/picasso/conversation.html.
Surviving Picasso. Dir. James Ivory. Perf. Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore. 1996.
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