Comparative Analysis of “Les Demoiselles dAvignon” and “The Dance” Essay Example
Comparative Analysis of “Les Demoiselles dAvignon” and “The Dance” Essay Example

Comparative Analysis of “Les Demoiselles dAvignon” and “The Dance” Essay Example

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  • Pages: 5 (1239 words)
  • Published: November 5, 2017
  • Type: Essay
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The Les Demoiselles d’Avignon ( 1907. Museum of Modern Art. New York ) . is an oil on canvas picture by Pablo Picasso. This is an image of five nudes grouped around a still life. Of the five figures. four of the figures are confronting the spectator. There is a disjuncture in the 5th figure as she is crouched on the floor. her back off from the spectator. while her face. or mask. addresses the spectator. This vertically aligned picture steps 8’x7’8? and was painted after the Blue and Rose periods. The Dance ( First Version. 1909. Museum of Modern Art. New York ) . is an oil on canvas picture by Henri Matisse. This is an image of five bare adult females associating weaponries in an ellipse. This horizontally aligned picture steps 8’6?x12’9? . This picture lacks item and complexness. The creative person has

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used four colourss throughout the picture. These colourss are green. pink. black and bluish.

Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon after a ill-famed topographic point of harlotry. The spectator is both attracted to the progresss of the damsels. yet at the same clip. recoiled with the horror of these cocottes. This art belongs to a manner of art known as Cubism. The barbarian. cold caputs of the figures are the direct consequence of Picasso’s recent exposure Iberian art from the sub-Saharan. Western African part. The accent on abstraction. two-dimensionality and angular shape prevalent in the picture are properties of Iberian art. Through this picture Picasso has lost the involvement of realistic curves of the anatomy and has chosen to make planes. The figures seem level. planar and weightless. We can split the

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picture into parts. i. e. . the three-fifths on the left and the two-fifths on the right.

The left manus part relates to the colourss of the Rose period. while the displacement in colourss towards blue on the right is evocative of the Blue period. The primary difference between the left and the right sides nevertheless lies in the caputs of the two figures. The figures on the right are losing ears. their oral cavities are egg-shaped. their mentums pointed and their nose curiously shaped. The ears. eyes. nose and mouth seem to be disjuncted and possibly even dislocated for these two figures. Their forms when compared to those of the left are grotesque. The inordinate usage of shadowing adds to the hyperbole of the African-like faces. Another illustration of disjuncture within the picture is the right leg of the adult females in the far left seems to morph in a block.

In the Dance the spectator is no longer addressed by the regards of the adult females. There is no audience-artwork engagement. The adult females are no longer concerned with the audience. The dance seems to arise with the figure in the foreground. following a clockwise rotary motion. The painting offers soft additive contours that is delighting to the viewing audiences eyes. There is a disjuncture which appears when the adult females in the foreground is unable to clasp the manus of the figure to her left. This is where the tenseness arises.

This interruption in integrity shows that the circle is non complete. It shows the that the dance can non go on everlastingly. The fact that one nexus in the concatenation is losing causes an

imbalance. This imbalance is captured in the figure to the right of the figure in the foreground. It seems that since the figure in the foreground hastens her motion in order to clasp her manus with the figure on the left. This sudden motion throws the figure on her right off balance. The five figures in the Dance are portrayed as imitations instead than as existent adult females.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is radically different in manner to any of the pictures we have examined up boulder clay now in category. The simpleness of the picture may propose that it was intended to be a fundamental experiment in signifier. It is about as if the picture is layered with broken glass. and the spectator is expected to see this new. distorted image. In the picture. spacial deepness and symmetricalness are destroyed. The infinite in which figures stand about seems graven instead than painted. By detecting the adult females on the far right. between the drape. we notice how two-dimensional her organic structure truly is. Through the picture Picasso has distorted the ideal signifier of the female nude. which he has reconstructed into harsh. angular forms.

Within the picture are several sexual mentions. The pointed border of the tabular array in the foreground can be seen as a representation of incursion. From the position of the 2nd adult females from the left we can see her as either standing up or lying down. Though in the picture. the figure is painted standing vertically. the position indicates that the place is more suitable for a horizontal place as though she was on a bed. This double airs can be read

possibly as the rhythmical oscillation of a sexual act. The Citrullus vulgaris placed at the border of the tabular array can be considered a phallic symbol. The manner the Citrullus vulgaris piece extends beyond the tabular array and towards the adult females can besides be seen as another mention to incursion. Picasso has approached the subject of erotism in a less conventional mode.

In the Dance the spectator is no longer involved in the picture. One can non read the picture on a higher degree. Unlike Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. There are no phallic symbolism. There is no erotism expressed within this picture. It is the simpleness of the painting the audience appreciates. Matisse has gone back to the really basicss ; making a picture of minimal item and a really simple background. He has used blue in the background to stand for the sky while utilizing green to stand for the grass. I am non proposing that his picture was excessively simple to be considered a chef-d'oeuvre. The simpleness is the beauty of it.

Both the pictures consist of five bare adult females. whose individualities are unknown. Each creative person has painted the basic signifiers of adult females. go forthing out genital organs to exemplify that they were concerned with merely the signifiers of the figures. Both pictures offer an aura of high energy. The energy derived from the Dance is a consequence of the urgency the terpsichoreans have in organizing the perfect circle and their inability to make so. In Les Demoiselles d’Avignon the energy originates from the barbarian power these adult females possess. The fright deducing from barbarian strength of these two figures on

the right dispel the tempting qualities the three figures on the left portray. In the Dance the creative person has created the painting out of contours while in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Picasso has steadfastly defined planes with lower limit of contours.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon illustrates Picasso’s intense fright of adult females. his demand to rule and falsify them. Even today when we are confronted with this picture. it is difficult to keep a fleeting fright. The Dance captures the beauty of adult females and dance through the traditional beauties of art. Picasso no longer considers the subjects of traditional beauty of art nor the realistic portraiture of his topic. The Les Demoiselles d’Avignon stands as a barbarous representation to the delectation of the senses that Matisse’s the Dance exalts.

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