Painting in Painting and Sculpture Gallery I In MOMA in New York

MoMA

In the Museum of Modern Art of New York City, New York there is an enormous oil painting on canvas which was painted by one of the most famous painters of all time, Pablo Picasso. The piece is entitled "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" which means "The Young Ladies of Avignon" in English, an ironic title which will be made clear. The painting is extremely large, almost 8-foot square. Many of Picasso's paintings depicted scenes he had witnessed and people he had personally known. Although most Picasso paintings are interpretive and representational rather than obvious depictions of their subject, the emotion and authenticity of their subject is still visible to those who understand exactly what it is that the artist is trying to show. It is a large oil painting created in 1907 which depicts four prostitutes from Paris, France. The basic thematic point of the piece is that those who sell their bodies for money are a desperate lot of women. They are not the gorgeous creatures of stage or screen or literature. They are women who have no other options but to sell their bodies in order to feed themselves and their loved ones.

The painting is from Picasso's cubism phase wherein regular, rounded objects are transformed. Cubist paintings, mostly portraits, are ones in which the actual item being painted are not depicted in any way that could be considered true to live, and yet their subjects are still obvious through the use of angle choices, color, and subjects. Instead of the round, subtle women that one would usually associate with the lascivious occupation, Picasso paints them as angular, and cross, almost monstrous creatures. The women are mostly undressed, as would be expected considering their obvious occupation. Prostitutes hardly require clothing to ply their trade. Although Picasso does not explicitly state that these women are prostitutes; he labels the painting young ladies after all. However, their dress and their close proximity illustrates that these are baser, lower class women who play in the sex trade. The women are painted in sexually suggestive poses and show their flesh without fear or shame which would be far more likely in this period of history. Only women without morals or ethics or the Victorian sensibility would be likely to pose in such a matter, particularly when there is a potential audience to witness them.

The two women in the center of the painting are show to be looking directly at the viewer. Their eyes are large in their faces with heavily lined black pupils and no irises of any color whatsoever to give individuality or unique character. Their noses are sharp and angular and the little hair that is atop their head is minimal, as if the head has too much scalp for the meager amounts of hair. One woman, whose face is a darker shade than the others, is in profile. The other two women are facing the front but their faces are obscured by horrific coverings which appear to be masks of some kind. Each woman's body is a light pink, although only the women in the center are colored a singular shade. The monster women and the dark-faced one have bodies which are colored in darker shades of pink as well. Their breasts are defined, but only barely. None of them have nipples or genitalia which illustrates them as obviously female. None of the women are clothed, although there is white color which looks like linen that serves as the background for the women and as covering to conceal some of the women's bodies. Each woman is displaying herself for the observer as though the viewer of the painting were a potential client.

Beyond the actual people in the painting, the setting of the painting seems to echo the sexuality of the women and to comment on the danger of their profession. The left most woman stands in front of a dark red curtain that is the shade of blood. Her position and her holding of the curtain show the rest of the debauched scene. She is like a gatekeeper between the Victorian, acceptable world, and the world of the prostitutes beyond. Her position is illustrated in her dress, for she is the one among all five women who is most covered. The danger of the women is illustrated in the rest of the piece. For example, the linen which covers the women is as jagged and angular as the subjects themselves. Their bedclothes are then allowed to mimic weaponry of a sort. This point is again illustrated in the fruit that is placed at the bottom center of the painting. There is a table or some sort of shelving on which sits a bowl of fruit. This bowl has a sharp edge which points up at the women. The food is colorless, just black and white and barely discernible as food products. The only color in the foods is the red striping of the pears and the blood red melon which is a sharp crescent shape. The sharp point of the melon looks like it will pierce the leg of the bottom right prostitute.

When first shown to the public, many people were shocked and even outraged by "Les Damoiselles D'Avignon." Expressionism and representational art was just beginning to emerge as an art form. Few painters would have put effort into creating something as visually unappealing as this painting. Even modernist paintings of the period believed the Picasso had lost his senses when he created this painting (Plagens 1). It is certainly not beautiful and very few could state that it is visually appealing. Yet, this painting has an unmistakable quality which, although perhaps ugly, is very powerful and illustrates a definite thematic point that Picasso intended to introduce to the viewer.

Many art critics have postulated that the mixture of danger and sexuality that is portrayed in the painting is an example of the psychological scenario that would have been prevalent in Victorian society. Women who were of low social standing or who were born illegitimate could get jobs as servants or perhaps nurses or governesses. However, there were many who because they could not get such positions found themselves in the unenviable position of either giving their bodies or starving to death. Prostitutes were everywhere at this time and many a young man lost himself and his money in brothels, such as those that lined the streets of Avignon. There was little protection against venereal disease available and thus frequenting prostitutes was usually equated with catching one or more conditions which the victim would eventually die from, but usually not before passing on the disease to his wife and then potentially having children with the condition.