Pablo Picasso , part one

In 1907, PIcasso completed what was to be a radical piece of twentieth century art: "Le Demoiselles d'Avignon," an eight-foot-square painting of distorted female figures with almost tribal mask-looking faces that was inspired by Jean Antoine Dominique Ingres' 1863 canvas "The Turkish Bath." The work generated much controversy both for and against, and is now hanging at the Muesum of Modern Art in New York.

Picasso then began to compose paintings of objects deconstructed into geometric shapes like small squares. Georges Braque submitted several works in this style to the 1908 Salon , which caused critic Louis Vauxcelles to write that " Braque submitted pictures that looked like little cubes," and the term "cubism" was born. Inspired in part by the refraction of images (perhaps ,it has been suggested, in wine carafes found in cafes) and a desire to show all aspects of an object simultaneously, cubism was a radical re-thinking of figurative art. Picasso's 1910 "Portrait of Ambroise Vollard" is a perfect example of this early style of cubism, a portrait done with shards of images that comprise a whole against a muted brown background. Picasso and Braque eventually shifted their subject matter to include images of written words from newspapers and posters, as well as guitars, which Picasso seemed to paint endlessly. World War I interrupted the progress of cubism as Braque was called to fight, but Picasso picked up the cubist cause again in 1921 with "The Three Musicians" and in 1924 with "Mandolin and Guitar."

There is an "official" Picasso web site, maintained by the artist's son Claude Picasso at http://www.clubinternet.com/picasso/

Next week, Picasso's work from the 1920's to his death in 1973.

-Nick Burton

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