impacted
during the painting of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" by a
visit to the Musee d'Ethnographie du Trocadero. According to Rubin,
"Picasso's prior explorations of archaic art brought to a head
in his fascination with ancient and Iberian sculpture, had prepared
him, visually and psychologically, for the sudden epiphany that would
be produced by tribal objects in the Musee d'Ethnographie du
Trocadero. The Trocadero visit triggered the final alteration of "The
Demoiselles," which resolved Picasso's dissatisfactions with the
large canvas's "Iberian" incarnation by informing three of
his figures's visages with mysterious "Masks" that
expressed otherness, savage sexuality, violence, and, finally,
horrors. (Rubin 16).
The
visit to the Musee d'Ethnographie du Trocadero, Picasso later said,
hade made him "understand what painting was about." (Gilot
226).
The
influence of masks from Africa is apparent in the head of the figure
on the left and the two on the right Golding compares the left one
to Ivory Coast masks and the two on the right to certain masks of
French Congo origin. See (59B). Picasso probably was introduced to
African sculpture by Matisse or Derain in 1905, and this explains
some of the changes in style that occurred after that time. The heads
were transformed into masks, presenting a startling confrontation in
an already violent composition. (Golding qtd. in Hilton 11).
Picasso's
study of classical form and his interest in primitive art shows that
his style was evolving from the sentimental subject-centered work of
the earlier periods and that he was preparing for a major synthesis
of form. Picasso again found what he was looking for hidden in
Titian's "Diana and Actaeon." In the trees he found the
visual suggestion of the masked head on the upper right. He
constructed the mask of the seated figure from elements he found in
the head of Diana and the figures next to her. See "Study of the
Woman on the Right (59) and these two: "Study of Two Persons,
Figure on the Right" (60), and "Study of Two Persons,
Figure on the Right (61). The "Study for the Head on the Right
(62) resulted from drawings Picasso did from Diana (43A) and the
flipped torso of El Greco's Christ in "Holy Trinity "
(42A).
Two
other masterworks may be considered. Firstly, the nude woman in
Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" (133A) who sits on drapery
with her elbow
62
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