In painting The Young Ladies of Avignon, Picasso abandoned all known form and representation of traditional art. It marks a radical break from traditional composition and perspective in painting. This composition is semi-Gothic, semi-black, with a new relationship between figures and space, and a direct introduction to Cubism.
The painting The Young Ladies of Avignon depicts five naked women with still life, a small tableau of fruit behind them, and composed of flat, splintered planes. Women's faces were inspired by black Iberian sculptures and African masks. The color of their flesh makes them appear starkly naked. Their living form imposes deformations of black sculpture. Pablo Picasso used distortion of women's bodies and geometric forms in an innovative way, which challenge the expectation that paintings will offer idealized representations of women's beauty. The cut lines intersect the surfaces of the body and space into smaller geometric units, the so-called veneers, which push each other. In this way, a dense and close relationship between the figures and space is achieved, and also the impression of volume. Picasso's omission of perspective is revolutionary. There is no vanishing point, nowhere for the eye to move beyond the women and their pointed glances.
Although no longer The Young Ladies of Avignon causing a scandal, the painting, which represents five prostitutes, two of whom have their faces covered with African masks, still arouses visual shock. The painting is still enigmatic, difficult to read, and mysterious.
