January 10, 2007

Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon, for some the painting that marked the birth of modern art is 100 years old.

Some may argue that modernism had older roots, and in my opinion Ole Pablo is an over-rated, if prolific figure in the art world. But 100 years! Stone cold old! Give me this fella anyday.

posted by kitfisto 17 years ago
  • I saw a lot of the preparatory sketches when I was in the (disappointing) Picasso Museum a couple of years back -- the inclusion of the sailor made it a completely different painting, and a much easier one. Never knew quite what to make of the face on the lower right. Always seemed to belong to a different painting. Seeing the progress of the revisions helped explain how it got to be that way, but not why there was such a different style to it. Huh.
  • But yeah -- after Duchamp, everyone else looked like they were feeding on scraps.
  • Happy birthday Demoiselles, you old bags! I've always found this painting really disturbing. Not a big fan of cubism to begin with, but I find this one particularly grotesque and hostile. Which I guess was the effect he was trying to achieve. Nice post!
  • Yeah - the best thing Cubism did was get Duchamp to paint 'Naked Lady Popping Downstairs', and Braque was better at it anyway.
  • I ♥ Olympia
  • I was told by my art teacher that Picasso saw an exhibition of African art half-way through painting this, and it had a radical and immediate effect on him, so that you can see a new style kicking in literally in mid-painting, between demoiselles 3 and 4. I never believed half of what that art teacher said, though.
  • I always fell asleep in art history class. Which probably explains my half-formed opinions and deep confusion about most of it.
  • Those demoiselles do not appear to be dancing on a bridge, which is what I have been led to believe is the only thing to do in Avignon. I guess you can only believe half of what the music teacher tells you, too.
  • the (disappointing) Picasso Museum pfft.
  • No, it is - if he means the one in Paris. Rubbish, I tell you!
  • Sorry, Wolof, but it was. All sketches and plaster models -- interesting enough, to a point -- but no finished goods. And his collection of other artists' work was just one room. All their stuff, and all his completed works were out on the road.
  • "half-formed opinions and deep confusion . . " --MonkeyFilter, Demoiselles d'Avignon, fpp. 13,520
  • When I went there it was full of stuff. Sorry they packed up and toured with it.
  • The problem with Picasso when I saw him, was that there was so much stuff that by the time you got to a good one you were tired of it. It's like a decent double album which could have been a very good single one.
  • ♫ ♫ Oh Demoiselles d'Avignon, parlez-vous, Demoiselles d'Avignon, parlez-vous, They got the palm and the croix de guerre, For washin' soldiers underwear, Hinky-dinky parlez-vous. ♫