Tiffany Thomas Primitivism-Writing Assignment #3 1
Pablo Picasso started his art history as a child prodigy with highly polished works
until he moved to Paris and sought images from African art to use in his paintings. He
used the art without any understanding or care about the cultures and meanings behind
them. In his painting Les DemoisellesvD’Avignon” was made possible by a contact that
he used for African art ideas. It was called one of the most radical paintings of the
twentieth century. He still pulled from Western tradition when he did the painting in his
placement of the women but kept other sources of ideas in the painting as well such as
masklike features on some of the women and flattened features on others. It was said
that things such as the women’s features and even the state of the fruit are there to
prove that the women are not passive as men want them. In doing this, he contradicts
the traditional viewpoint that nude females are sexually available.
