Picasso and Matisse: Comparison, Essay Example

Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is often cited as the ultimate example of Cubism, or is its most well-known.  Cubism is essentially marked by fragmentation of the forms, and a disregard for dimension (Getlein 485).  In the Picasso work, for instance, the bodies of the women are lacking any real form, and their limbs and breasts are presented as flat planes.  The movement may be seen as a radical reaction to the softer styles preceding it.  If Impressionism, Expressionism, and Fauvism emphasized richness of color and subjective romanticism, Cubism evolved to “shatter” the styles.  As subject is used to translate the artist’s vision, then, the women of Picasso’s painting in their Cubist form seem to make a statement beyond mere technique or style, and this may be seen in their stark contrast with Matisse’s women in his The Joy of Life.

Picasso’s “ladies of d’Avignon” are known to be prostitutes, but this is not necessarily of any real importance in regard to his greater purpose.  Both he and Matisse, for instance, portray nude females with little or no anatomical distinction.  In one sense, the works are remarkably similar, even as this similarity points to Picasso’s work as being reactive to the Matisse painting.  In The Joy of Life, both color and form of figure lend to the work an overt sensuality.  If the painting is not a celebration of life, it is certainly a vibrant and potently human rendition of it.  Picasso challenges this by choosing to deconstruct that very humanity.  His nudes are as lifeless as the tray of fruit in the painting, and the poses of the arms over the head, traditionally symbolic of seduction, act as counterpoint to the painting’s geometry.  Matisse, even while departing from classic form, nonetheless exalts the earthiness of women and glorifies their sexuality through color and pose; Picasso seems to seek a more essential nature of women.  He breaks them apart, or shatters their bodies, to gain a deeper understanding of the whole.  More exactly, he attempts to set aside every romantic notion attached to the gender by stripping it of its traditional identity.  Matisse’s expressionism may have been revolutionary, but it still chose to view with eyes tuned to classical expectations of what women are.  He discarded detail but held to classic intent and spirit.  Picasso, conversely, accomplished the striking feat of simultaneously “de-sexing” women and presenting them as even more animalistic, and nearly savage.  This is the appeal of Cubism to me, in that its stark geometry emphasizes the animal in the subjects.