... prodigy, painting realistic works when he was only 14 years old. Picasso's first personal style, called the Blue Period (1901-1904), focused on the themes of loneliness and despair, and featured mainly shades of blue. The style of this period gave way between 1904 and 1906 to a style that stressed warmer colours and moods. Abandoning the thin, discouraged faces of the Blue Period, Picasso gave his subjects new flexibility and frequently included circus scenes in his works. By 1906, he began painting great figures that are massive, as if to withstand potential shock or fear. In 1907, Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a landmark in art. This picture marked a decisive break with traditional notions of beauty and harmony. Five monstrous female figures with masks rather than faces pose in a convulsive, jagged array--distorted, shaken, and savagely transformed. Out of this disruptive image grew the style known as cubism. Early ...

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