43 CHAP IV

CHAPTER IV

New Forms, Primitive Faces and Cubism - 1906-1914

EXAMPLES FROM 1906

"Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" 1906 (40)

The Autumn Salon of 1905 showed ten of Cezanne's paintings, with ten being shown the year of his death, 1906; fifty-six works were exhibited in a memorial in 1907. Picasso had to make his peace with the attention being paid to the art of Cezanne by paying him homage and, in his own way, challenging Cezanne.

His way of doing this was to include figures placed in a tight grouping following Cezanne's lead. The nude in the center of Picasso's painting of "Les Demoielles d'Avignon" (40) is quite similar to a nude with raised arm and the drapery displayed in the "Temptation of St. Anthony" (40E) by Cezanne. The idea of an interior scene bordered by curtains could have been acquired from a study of Cezanne's "A Modern Olympia." (39A). The nudes in Cezanne's paintings and the nude in "La Source" (40D) by Ingres strike a pose with arm raised to expose the armpit; a gesture which was considered sexually provocative to many Europeans at the time.

The "cube, cone and cylinder" theory promoted by Cezanne especially affected the form of Picasso's figures. This theory was first published in 1907, although there were important Cezanne exhibitions in Paris during 1905 and 1906, as well as 1907, so Picasso had ample opportunity to study Cezanne's work at these exhibitions.

I believe an explanation may be found by considering that Picasso, in looking at Cezanne's work, realized that Cezanne was working from Ingres's "The Golden Age" of 1862 (29C) and Titian's "Diana and Actaeon" of 1559 (40A). The Rubenesque statue of the woman must also have been obvious to him. He certainly had access to El Greco's art since Picasso had copies of El Greco's paintings and was enthusiastic about Cezanne's search for alternatives to the

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