Artnit

Symbolist poetry of French poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé anticipated and inspired artistic schools of the early 20th century like Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism, and Dadaism. The idea of poetry as evocative, derived from the world of ideas, philosophy, and arguably, from the poets own drive to create something original from the depth of their being. Stéphane Mallarmé said: “The art of evoking an object little by little so as to reveal a mood or, conversely, the art of choosing an object and extracting from it an ‘etat d’ame’” -- a state of the soul.

Girl with a Mandolin is one of the most beautiful, lyrical, and accessible of all Cubist paintings but is also an early example of an Analytic Cubist painting. The idea for this painting originated in Cadaques where Pablo Picasso and Fernande Olivier spent a summer vacation in 1910. The same year Picasso painted in Paris Girl with a Mandolin within the Cubism. Today it is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Influenced by Camille Corot, who taught him that the addition of a musical instrument endows a character with the stillness of an object, Georges Braque returned to the depiction of the human figure after two years that was almost entirely dedicated to painting landscapes and still life pieces. He painted Woman with a Mandolin in the spring of 1910, during his first cubist phase, known as Analytical Cubism. This painting was the first oval-shaped cubist painting, painted by Georges Braque in the usual rectangular shape. After he completed this work Pablo Picasso also produced a painting featuring a figure with a mandolin, an oval Girl with a Mandolin, and a rectangular Girl with a Mandolin. Today, the painting Woman with a Mandolin is in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon or The Young Ladies of Avignon, originally titled The Brothel of Avignon is a revolutionary large oil painting created in 1907 by Pablo Picasso. Picasso prepared this painting in his Paris studio over six months by making hundreds of sketches, drawings, and paintings of revision. He named the painting The Young Ladies of Avignon after a brothel in Avignon Street in Barcelona. This painting is considered to be the first cubist, avant-garde, and municipal modern painting of the XX century and the most famous example of cubism painting. It is housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.