About Picasso's African Art

Of Pablo Picasso's complete collection of artwork, his African art is particularly important because it marks the advent of the cubist themes that dominated his work throughout his career. Although Picasso's African phase is technically confined by art historians to just a few years, his work during this time, along with that of his contemporaries, served to catalyze the entire cubist movement that epitomizes modern art as a whole. In that respect, Picasso's African art does not represent a "phase" as much as the ongoing evolution of modern art.

Pablo Picasso's African phase--or his "periode negre," as he called it--spans the years of 1907 through 1909, immediately following his Blue and Rose periods. Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" painting is cited as his first major cubist work and the genesis of his African period. In "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," the two figures farthest to the right of the painting reveal Picasso's strong interest in the form of the African mask.

An African mask, given to Picasso by Henri Matisse, and other African artifacts Picasso saw about the same time at the Trocadero Museum of Ethnology, are often credited as the inspiration for the archaic and sculptural quality of Picasso's African art and his later cubist works. In addition, popular fiction of the period, such as "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, and current events surrounding France's and Belgium's aggressive colonization efforts in Africa, fueled the curiosity and fascination of the art community as a whole.

Picasso's African period paintings are characterized by an emphasis on the simplified forms of objects. Complicated figures are reduced to fundamental geometric shapes. Concave and convex lines are often reversed, and colors tend toward earthy greens, reds and golds. However, the multiple facets and angles of singular objects seen in Picasso's later cubist works are not fully evident in the artworks of Picasso's African period.

According to Picasso's own account, the mask and other African art were a powerful catalyst for his creativity. Picasso's works of 1907 interpret the the African mask quite literally. "Nude (Bust)" and "Dance of the Veils" both feature female figures with faces obviously styled after the mask in the characteristic red, green and gold. By 1908, Picasso's interpretation of the mask had evolved into the more abstract. "Bathing" is full of the same red, green and gold colors, but the female subject's face is rendered with concave lines on the profile, where in a realistic or purely primitive style, they would be convex. Overt references to the African mask are absent from this painting.

Other artists of the late 1800s and early 1900s were also attracted to African art. Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne and, most notably, George Barque all contributed to the cubist movement. But Picasso's inspiration is uniquely organic, never imitating African art but rather growing from it. This is what established Picasso as the leading founder of the cubist movement. And indeed, Picasso did not ever abandon African themes in his art. Even as recently as 1972, less than a year before his death, a hint of the strong African mask that so enamored Picasso was discerned in the face of the subject of his painting, "Musician."