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space of Renaissance perspective in El Greco's manneristic style.

Picasso recalled that he had Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" (28C) and Delacroix's "Women of Algiers" (130A) in mind when he started work on "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." This may be true, however, I propose that Picasso initially made studies from Rubens and Zurbaran and shortly thereafter added Titian and El Greco as major sources. I will demonstrate how their influences were much more direct than that of Manet and Delacroix when he began the most ambitious project of his early career.

An investigation involving the early studies for "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" will support this thesis. A number of the preparatory studies were never published until just before Picasso's death. Some have suggested that Picasso's secrecy was in order to conceal his sources. These sketches and studies provide valuable clues about the progression of the work as Picasso spends months defining each character and how they will co-exist in his new space. Over forty compositional studies for "Les Demoielles d'Avignon" have been identified. These reveal the challenge he faced as he attempted to combine these numerous sources.

No satisfactory explanation has been offered for the abrupt change which occurred from the sketches for the "Demoiselles", displaying the Cezanne influence, to the more severe color and the angular composition in the painting. Herbert Read commented on this shift from Cezanne as follows: "Cezanne's pyramidal structure is replaced by vertical parallels" and he posed the question about the influence of Cezanne, "In the completed painting...certain innovations appear for which there is no parallel in Cezanne's "Baigneuses,"notable the geometricization of the sharply outlined figures, and the folds of draperies against which the "Demoiselles" disport themselves" (Read 60) .

"Studies for the Demoiselles" 1906 (35) (36) (37) (38) (39)

An investigation involving the early studies for "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" (40) may offer an explanation. Picasso's "Study for the Demoiselles"(35) may have been sketched from the figures in Poussin's "Parnassus" (35A) which Picasso could have studied at the Prado Museum.

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