Les Demoiselles D'Avignon

It is with Les Demoiselles D'Avignon that I believe the shamanic influences were truly brought to bear on Picasso from the otherworld. He had already started on this path with his Two Nudes painting where primitivism had made his figures much more solid and earthy. Influenced by early the Iberian sculpture and by African statues and masks that he encountered in the Musee du Trocadero, he moved away from literal representation and started to look at other ways of seeing and constructing forms. The African sculptures contained primal information about the way he saw things. It was only the components of a face he needed to see.

A hand carved African Yoruba Face Mask.