Comment on Picasso's Les Demoiselles d' Avignon

Painted and revised several times in June-July 1907, Picasso unveiled this masterpiece in his Paris lodgings to a small group of critics and admirers, to a mixed response. This work is of course a radical break from traditional composition.

At first glance, the work is quite striking in presentation, wondering in the back of my mind what could possibly be the subject matter; let alone its style and method? Only when one understands the painting's back story, does the painting achieve any semblance of meaning to the viewer.

Now one studies the painting again: these five nude prostitutes, evidently, from a brothel on Carrer d' Avinyo, in Barcelona Spain, are certainly portrayed as miserable; perhaps on strike, protesting having to pose for the young painter, though seemingly bored too, waiting for the next sex-hungry client to walk through the front door.

The space is compressed, the figures appearing to project from the canvass like shards of glass. At the bottom is an apparent still life fruit, teetering on an up-side down table. As the artist had told his first audience in Paris, the faces of the models were inspired by Iberian sculpture and African masks. In the upper right corner of the canvas, the prostitute's face looks covered, like a black smudge, in an effort not to be recognised or noticed at all.

Les Demoiselles d' Avignon was to be revolutionary and controversial, evoking strong emotions from critics to even the artist's colleagues. “Has our mad friend gone insane?” Matisse, a close friend of Picasso, and later collaborator, thought the painting a joke on his first viewing. At the unveiling, bourgeoisie sycophants, however, dribbled into their expensive champaign with unadulterated praise, despite having not the slightest clue what they were seeing. Later Matisse, he claims, studied the piece further, acknowledging the works originality and “genius” cementing the to artist's later collaboration, and the subsequent Cubist movement.

The “morality brigade” at the time deemed the painting disgusting and decadent. In response, Picasso, true to his reputation and flair for anything controversial, incendiary and scandalous, re- named the work, mon bordel (my brothel) though ended up preferring the title Las chicas de Avignon – the man-girls of Avignon.

Many critics over the century have commented that the models cannot be discerned as either male or female, all the women quite ugly, and sexually appealing for those adventurous types. Other critics call the work the quintessential representation of Picasso's misogyny.

Either way, the painting continues to evoke fascination and emotion today.